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Tag: trump ballroom

Lame Duck Trump Isn't Fretting Over Polls -- He's Too Busy Cashing Out

Donald Trump's approval numbers continue to crater. Even Republicans have cooled on the president's performance. But the president shows no sign of noticing, nor is he changing his ways. Even his gaslighting has gone wan. He's failed to make Americans believe that prices are going down when they're clearly not.

What gives? Why isn't he trying to win back the public's love? Perhaps because he no longer cares. The only infrastructure he seems interested in building is his family fortune.

Trump charmed farmers into supporting him twice. He's bankrupting them with his trade-war antics. Many farmers have finally turned on him, but so what? Trump's not running again. He no longer needs their affection or their votes.

This ability to seduce then abandon goes way back. In 1995, Trump was a near-broke developer whose Atlantic City casinos were going under. He needed suckers to bail him out and found them through an initial public offering of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts stock. Rubes buying into his spinner-of-gold act poured $140 million into his empty coffers. In 2004, burdened by debt and never turning a profit, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy. For every $10 that his marks invested at that stock sale, they had $1 left.

"People don't understand this company" was his explanation.

The presidency offered new and powerful tools to get people to hand over their money. Days after returning to office, Trump's regulators dropped the fraud case against crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun. The Chinese-born speculator, target of an FBI investigation, fixed his problem by "investing" more than $40 million on $TRUMP coins — a crypto meme coin with no fundamental value.

Last month, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao. The Chinese-born Canadian had spent four months in prison for failing to prevent his crypto exchange, Binance, from laundering money. Zhao made his woes go away by having Binance facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial stablecoin. World Liberty was founded by Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Jr.

Asked about the pardon of Zhao, Trump said, "I don't know who he is."

By June, Trump and family had already taken in about $1 billion in crypto ventures alone, according to Forbes' calculations. That included profits from $100 million of World Liberty cryptocurrency tokens that a murky entity based in the United Arab Emirates said it was buying.

You enrich me and I'll get you off whatever hook you're hanging from. How better to embolden financial lawbreakers than a president saying, in effect, I've got your back — for a fee?

Being blatant about corruption is part of the mob boss' business model. Trump is telling those needing government favors that he's not shy about granting them, appearances be damned. Not only does he hand out pardons without blushing, he's been firing the regulators whose job it was to police wrongdoing.

Trump's agenda for a second term appears to be not giving a damn. He doesn't even care about the Republican Party, which just felt the sting of an unhappy electorate. Trump probably figures that Democrats will soon take control of at least the House in the midterms, so he might as well use the months left with a servile Republican Congress to increase his fortune.

He could also turn attention freed from the nation's concerns to immortalizing himself. Start by leveling an entire wing of the White House for a banquet hall that administration officials are already calling "The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom."

Asked about the naming, Trump said, "I won't get into that now."

It hardly needs mentioning that rich donors needing inside deals are paying for the ballroom.

Trump does care about numbers, but his job approval doesn't seem to be among them.

Froma Harrop is an award winning journalist who covers politics, economics and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Why Trump's 'Donor-Financed' White House Ballroom Will Cost Taxpayers Millions

Trump and his Republican sycophants have been busy telling us that we shouldn’t be bothered by Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing and his plans for a now $350 million ballroom. (The price tag keeps rising, it had been $200 million.)

While many of us were upset about Trump’s destruction of a historic landmark with zero consultation from anyone, the consolation is supposed to be that taxpayers are not footing the bill. Trump says he is raising the money from his friends and corporate sponsors.

Apparently, we are supposed to be relieved that people seeking favors from Trump are paying for the ballroom rather than taxpayer dollars. As David Dayen pointed out in a piece in The American Prospect, these contributions are likely to prove very costly to the American people.

Dayen goes through the public list of donors (some are anonymous) and found off the bat the big tech companies, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. These companies have all sorts of occasion to seek government contracts and regulatory favors from a Trump administration that has openly said it favors its friends in such matters.

The list includes many other companies looking for favors, such as Hewlett Packard and Union Pacific, both looking for regulatory approval on major mergers. And then there are crypto folks who always want more love from Donald Trump as they expand their scams.

This naked corruption is the biggest cost to the public from Trump’s big ballroom, but it is not the only one. If we’re only concerned about the budgetary impact, it’s important to remember that taxpayers pay a price for the “generosity” of rich people. They deduct their contributions from their taxable income.

The current top tax rate is roughly 40 percent. (This includes the Medicare tax, which applies to all income of rich people.) If the full $350 million were coming from individuals, this means that we would be getting $140 million less in taxes from them because of their contributions to Trump’s mega ballroom.

From a straight budgetary perspective, the public would be better off if Trump built something more tasteful in the $100-$140 million range, using taxpayer dollars, than the mega MAGA monstrosity he is actually attaching to the White House. (What will this cost to demolish?)

In fairness, many of Trump’s contributions come from corporations who are only taxed at a 21 percent rate. Also, it’s likely that some of Trump’s contributors cheat, and don’t pay any taxes anyhow, so the deduction doesn’t mean anything to them. But none of us should think that just because the ballroom is paid for by contributions, it doesn’t cost the government anything.

Dean Baker is a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the author of the 2016 book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Dean Baker.

GOP Sycophants Rush To Praise Trump's Gaudy $300M Ballroom Project

Congressional Republicans bent over backward to defend President Donald Trump's unilateral decision to raze the entire East Wing of the White House to make way for his hideously gaudy $300 million ballroom.

Republicans mocked Democrats, who are outraged that Trump decided to demolish an entire segment of the White House to build a ballroom corruptly funded by donors who have business before the federal government.

"He put up some of his own money," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said of the project, even though we have no idea how much Trump—who notoriously stiffs his contractors—actually gave to the project. "You would think, 'Well gee whiz, at least they could agree to that, it's not even taxpayer money, it's gonna be a permanent renovation that will enhance the White House for all future presidents."

- YouTube youtu.be

Unfortunately for Scalise, Americans do not agree with that assessment, with just 23 percent of adults saying they think the ballroom will have a positive impact on the White House, according to a YouGov survey.

But Scalise continued his whiny tirade.

"They say no to everything he does," Scalise said. "Because they just are angry about the results of the election from last year."

Yes, we are angry. But it's because every day Trump does something so egregiously corrupt and illegal that it’s leading this country into banana republic territory.

"Presidents have routinely renovated and expanded the White House over the last century. The faux outrage from the Left is a deflection from the Schumer Shutdown," Trump bootlicker Rep. Andy Biggs wrote in a post on X. "Leftists are severely afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome," the Arizona Republican claimed.

Of course, those projects had approval from Congress, input from historic preservation boards, and were not funded by a corrupt pay-to-play scheme. But okay.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also mocked Democrats' outrage.

"I’m shaking right now. The humanity!" he wrote in a sarcastic post on X that featured images from past White House renovations.

And in his haste to defend Trump, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee wrote an idiotic post on X in which he posted an image of the White House being demolished along with the text, "Someone needs to stop the @realDonaldTrump administration from destroying the @WhiteHouse. Oh wait this was during the basketball court construction during the Obama administration. #nevermind"

Of course, the photo Burchett posted was NOT from Obama's basketball court "construction"—which actually wasn't construction at all but rather converting an existing tennis court so that he could shoot some hoops while Republicans painted him as the antichrist because his skin wasn't white.

Burchett ultimately deleted the post and put in the correct time the photo took place, which was during the Truman administration. But that still doesn't make the point he thinks he's making, as Truman had to renovate the White House because it was structurally unsound. And he did so in conjunction with historic preservation boards that worked to reuse existing decorative elements in the new building, and with congressional approval and funding.

According to the Truman presidential library, "The Truman renovation retained the original walls, the third floor and the roof, while removing, and then reinstalling, the interiors within a skeleton of steel structural beams on a new concrete foundation."

Trump, meanwhile, took a literal excavator to the structure—and is now blocking the press from seeing the destruction as it unfolds.

Only one Republican had the sense to say that, actually, razing a major portion of the White House to build a gilded ballroom amid a shutdown when many federal workers aren't getting paid is not a great look.

“We’re in the middle of a shutdown," North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said. "Got a couple of other things going on that we should probably focus on ahead of a building project.”

Of course, Tillis is retiring, so he no longer has to lick Trump's boots like his fellow GOP colleagues, who are afraid that speaking out against Dear Leader will cost them their seats in Congress—or worse.

Because, say it with me now: They're all cowards.

The Obscene Destruction Of A National Treasure Is This President's Legacy

The building's facade is gone — an ugly gash reminiscent of the smoldering Pentagon on 9/11. This disfigurement is not the act of terrorists or foreign foes. It's the work of our president. The East Wing of the White House, which has housed the visitors center, the office of the social secretary, the calligraphy office, and the First Lady's staff since 1942, is being demolished. No planning. No proposals to the National Capital Planning Commission. No opportunity for notice and comment from the public. Just Trump's whim — and a beloved national symbol tumbles to dust.

It's obscene.

No, destroying the physical structure of the White House is not as bad, on a moral scale, as blowing up boats carrying possibly innocent people to kingdom come. It's not as bad, as a political science matter, as corrupting the Justice Department to criminally prosecute Trump's critics. It's not as menacing as sending troops into American cities. And yet, this hurt is particularly sharp.

Any American who has ever been stirred by patriotic feeling has at some time or other considered the White House his or her own possession. Ten thousand people a week tour the mansion that is sometimes called the "People's House." They aren't there just to see the Blue Room or the Green Room. They are relishing a piece of their patrimony. The building was basically a character in the hit show "The West Wing," and you cannot count the number of movies — thrillers, histories, love stories — that have been located there. The building itself has semi-sacred status because of its history and because it represents something inestimably precious: this democratic republic.

Trump is not demolishing the whole building, but he's tearing down a wing — a graceful addition that was built to blend into the entire White House complex. In place of the lovely two-story building that featured views of the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and an iconic colonnade that led to the residence, he is constructing a 90,000-square-foot ballroom in the garish style of Mar-a-Lago.

It's all but impossible to imagine that this can be undone. But, as Jonathan V. Last suggests, Democrats interested in running for the presidency in 2028 should make "erasing this monstrosity" a campaign promise.

One of Trump's most successful cons is that he is a patriot. He literally hugs the flag and dubs anyone who supports him — disgraced and jailed former congressmen, criminals who attacked police on Jan. 6, convicted war criminals — patriots. Anyone who opposes or even criticizes Trump is tarred as an enemy of the people and an America hater.

But the bitter truth is that Trump is an antipatriot. He destroys things that make America worthy of love and admiration, and he is twisting the country toward a mean, crass kleptocracy. Our global reputation for humanitarianism? Gone. Our investments in scientific research for the betterment of humanity? In trouble. Our status as a secure financial center? Wobbly. Our reliability as an ally? No more. Our dedication to the rule of law domestically? Teetering. Our rock-solid dedication to freedom of speech? Under threat.

Would a patriot have turned bulldozers on the White House? For the sake of a gargantuan, tacky monarchical event space? Would a patriot show so little regard for how it would feel to his countrymen to see this desecration of a national symbol?

Trump is turning the White House into a reflection of himself — just as he is attempting to do to America. We can't stop the former. We must stop the latter.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Start your day with The National Memo Newsletter

Lame Duck Trump Isn't Fretting Over Polls -- He's Too Busy Cashing Out

Why Trump's 'Donor-Financed' White House Ballroom Will Cost Taxpayers Millions

GOP Sycophants Rush To Praise Trump's Gaudy $300M Ballroom Project

The Obscene Destruction Of A National Treasure Is This President's Legacy

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