East Wing demolition Donald Trump’s ode to self
Melania probably doesn’t care. Like New York TimesKatie Rogers reported in her book on First Ladies: American WomanMelania visited the East Wing, where the First Lady and her staff have offices, only a few times during the first term. He wasn’t around much during this period either.
Treasury Department employees working across from the demolition site were warned not to share photos. There must be a sense that this is disrespectful, as in 1980 when Trump destroyed Bonwit Teller’s limestone friezes he had promised the Metropolitan Museum of Art to build Trump Tower. The “vice president” of the Trump company, who identified himself as “John Baron”, said the friezes had little artistic value; it was a fake name he used while testifying in a case about Trump’s use of hundreds of illegal Polish immigrants for subversion.
But Trump has so little respect for this 123-year-old symbol of American history that he did not consult federal planning officials or Congress before destroying one side of the White House. It’s like demolishing a gas station.
When my mother and I visited the White House as a child, we loved hearing from foreign tourists how small and modest the house was. Its simplicity was part of its charm. European nobles did not have large castles. It was just a nice house with good curb appeal.
Trump is not doing anything small or modest. He showers himself with great, ostentatious praise. The joke when Trump was first running for office was that he would put his name on the exterior of the White House, as he did on all of his other properties. And now this is happening. White House officials say Trump will name the ballroom after himself.
This is a slam dance presidency that delights in pushing boundaries and provoking.
Build a giant $300 million gilded ballroom that will dwarf the central building while the government is shut down and people are out of work; Sticky gold plaster all over the Oval; sue everyone willy-nilly; subjecting enemies to legal torture; Sending troops to American cities; Forget due process and blow the alleged drug traffickers out of the water.
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“I think we’re going to kill the people who bring drugs into our country, okay?” he said on Thursday. “We will kill them.”
Trump’s talent is to find wormholes in the system that he can exploit for his own satisfaction or financial gain; They’re not particularly illegal because it never occurred to the founders or anyone else that a vagabond could rise this high.
“We the People” is very interesting. We are now governed by the whims of a single person.
Trump halted trade talks with Canada on Friday because he didn’t like an ad commissioned by the province of Ontario that was quoted from a radio address by President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.
Posting the fake AI scenario, Trump called the ad “FAKE.” (Reagan’s quotes were correct, but in a different order.) The Canadians paused this.
This was like Trump imposing a unilateral 50 percent tariff on Brazil because Brazil had the audacity to sue Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to steal an election while he was president. Or when Trump considered a potentially $40 billion bailout of his right-wing ally in Argentina and promised to quadruple the amount of Argentine beef allowed into that country at a lower tariff rate, infuriating struggling American farmers.
Trump can give in to any crazy impulse and no one can control him.
“Congress is adrift,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski. TimesCarl Hulse on overseeing Trump’s legally questionable military moves and vindictive tariffs. “It’s like we’ve given up. And that’s not a good signal to the American public.”
Congress is drifting. The White House is a shipwreck. Trump is looting in the Caribbean. James Comey and Letitia James are being forced to walk the plank, and Jack Smith and Adam Schiff could be next.
We are awash with sea metaphors as the president plunders and plunders. He’s a pirate and not the fun Halloween type.
This article was first published on: New York Times.
