The White House is full of so much rich history and tradition — it helps tell the story of America itself. And it’s an incredibly impressive and intimidating venue for facilitating international diplomacy.
As Michael Douglas’ President Andrew Shepherd says in “The American President,” “The White House is the single greatest home court advantage in the modern world.”
President Trump understands the value of first impressions, even (and especially) if they’re not painting an accurate picture. He may have put gold leaf in his NYC bathrooms, but he also inflated the value of his properties and his own net worth for years. He famously pretended to be his own spokesman to appear more established. He’s sold everything from luxury ties to luxury homegoods, most of which were made cheaply in China.
For Trump, you can forget if it’s genuine or not — it just has to look rich.
So no one should be surprised that on his second-go-round at president, he decided the White House — the people’s house — needed the Trump touch, too. Not known for subtlety, Trump’s already made noticeable changes, painting over fixtures in the Oval Office a garish gold, and festooning the place with gold vases, trophies, and coasters.
And now he’s building a new ballroom, much like the one he uses at Mar-a-Lago to host his corporate and political pals.
The new ballroom will cost $250 million, and Trump insists that it’s being entirely funded by private donors. With his penchant for misleading about his own expenditures, I guess we’ll just have to take his word for it.
But as America watches aghast that the White House East Wing is being torn up, Trump is reveling in the destruction…er, construction. At a Tuesday press conference he moaned, “You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back. You hear that sound? Oh, that’s music to my ears. I love that sound. Other people don’t like it. When I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.”
It’s not hard to see why. Trump’s used the office of the presidency to rake in the cash, boosting his personal net worth by a record $3 billion just since 2024.
According to Forbes: “No president has used his position of power to profit as immensely as Trump.” He’s primarily done that with a crypto venture he announced last September named World Liberty Financial, and a memecoin, all of which he helped make possible by rolling back regulations and signing favorable legislation. How convenient.
But that’s not all.
He’s announced a new “Arc de Trump,” a structure that will be built across from the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary. We don’t know how much it will cost or who is paying for it.
He’s refurbishing a $400 million Qatari plane he was “gifted” in May, which is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $1 billion. Trump says he’s donating the plane to his presidential library foundation.
A New York Times report this week alleged Trump is asking the Justice Department to pay him $230 million personally, over its investigations into him, an idea he later defended.
This is all happening while the government is shut down, and costing taxpayers $15 billion a week. And it’s happening as Trump just handed Argentina a $20 billion bailout while American farmers suffer under his dumb trade war. And it’s happening while 22 U.S. states are either in a recession or on the brink. Trump doesn’t care.
Of course, fleecing the American people isn’t new for him.
Last year, the House Oversight Committee revealed Trump was charging more than a thousand bucks a night on the taxpayers’ credit card so that Secret Service agents protecting his family could stay at Trump hotels.
After lying about the results of the 2020 election, he fleeced his own supporters, encouraging donations to help “Stop the Steal,” donations which he then used to pay his own legal bills and Melania’s stylist.
From golden sneakers to Trump Bibles, he’ll get his hands on Americans’ money any way he can.
But Trump is stuck in the 1980s — both in terms of his gaudy interior design aesthetic and his assumption of where the American economy is. He may learn in the midterms that greed isn’t as good as it was for Gordon Gecko when his voters can’t afford gas or groceries.
Or maybe he’s stuck in the 1780s, his faux-French “Arc de Trump” a fond homage to the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, whose lavish spending while their people starved prompted an actual revolution.
Will Americans tire of Trump’s excess as they struggle to meet basic needs while he shrugs and says, “Let them eat crypto?”
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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