Maureen Dowd: Trump is a pro at quid pro quo
When
Donald Trump
was headed for the Republican nomination in the summer of 2016, I took Carl Hulse, our chief Washington correspondent, to Trump Tower to meet him.
Trump didn't know anything about the inner workings of Washington. He proudly showed us his 'Wall of Shame' with pictures of
Republican candidates
he had bested. His campaign office had few staffers, but it overflowed with cheesy portraits of him sent by fans: one of him playing poker with Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt, and a cardboard cut-out of him giving a thumbs-up, flanked by Reagan and John Wayne.
As we were leaving, Hulse warned Trump drily, 'If you ever get a call from our colleague Eric Lipton, you'll know you're in trouble.'
'Eric Lipton?' Trump murmured.
READ MORE
The president probably knows who Lipton is now, because the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter is tracking Trump on issues of corruption as closely as the relentless lawman in the white straw hat tracked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Lipton and the Times' David Yaffe-Bellany were on the scene at Trump's Virginia golf club on Thursday night as the president held his gala dinner to promote sales of $TRUMP, the meme coin he launched on the cusp of his inauguration. (Melania Trump debuted hers two days later.)
Trump has been hawking himself in an absurdly grandiose way his whole life. But this time, he isn't grandstanding as a flamboyant New York business-person. He's selling himself as the president of the United States, staining his office with a blithe display of turpitude.
Protesters at the golf club shouted, 'Shame, shame, shame!' but there is no shame in Trumpworld. Trump asked guests, who were whooping with joy at the president who allowed them to purchase such primo access by essentially lining the pockets of Trump and his family, if they had seen his helicopter.
Protesters outside a private dinner with president Donald Trump and buyers of his cryptocurrency at his golf course in Virginia. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/The New York Times
'Yeah, super cool!' gushed a guest.
Buyers flew in from China and around the world, scarfing up a fortune in $TRUMP — some had millions of dollars worth — to procure the 220 seats at the dinner.
'It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J Trump,' Lipton and Yaffe-Bellany wrote. 'Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with the Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Trump and US financial regulations.'
Pan-seared influence peddling with a citrus reduction. The prez is a pro at quid pro quo.
Trump Inc.'s money grabs were taking place against the background of the president pushing through his 'big, beautiful bill' extending a tax cut for the rich while slicing billions from programmes that help poor people stay alive
Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, rebutted criticism on Thursday, saying, 'The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner.'
But he flew to Virginia on Marine One. He gave his remarks from a lectern with the presidential seal. And some of the crypto crowd Friday got a tour of the White House (Lipton took his post outside the fence).
With more than a dozen lucrative deals for his family and partners, the Times article said, 'Mr Trump is estimated to have added billions to his personal fortune, at least on paper, since the start of his new term, much of it through crypto.'
The corruption is seeping across the Potomac.
Donald Trump Jr and investors are opening a pricey private club in Georgetown called Executive Branch, where business and
tech moguls
can cozy up to administration big shots.
[
Trump and the Irish tech bros: How the 'crypto president' is winning over Silicon Valley
Opens in new window
]
The notorious $400 million (€351 million) gift for the president from the Qataris, a luxury jumbo jet, has arrived in San Antonio. This alluring 'pre-bribe,' as Saturday Night Live dubbed it, instantly wiped out Trump's old concerns that 'the nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.' (Accepting the plane was sort of like a terrorist fist-bump, the same kind a Fox News host bizarrely accused the Obamas of making with each other.)
Other foreign leaders got the message that emoluments were welcome. In an Oval Office meeting where Trump continued to relish his role as protector of the white patriarchy, the South African president jokingly told the American president, 'I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you.' (This might be the line that best sums up the Trump presidency in the history books.)
Trump replied breezily, 'I wish you did. I'd take it.'
Trump Inc.'s money grabs were taking place against the background of the president pushing through his 'big, beautiful bill' extending his obscene tax cut for the rich while slicing billions from programmes that help poor people stay alive.
'The guy promised to make American families more prosperous,' Barack Obama's former chief strategist David Axelrod said. 'He just decided to start with his own.'
In a galaxy long ago and far away, there was shame attached to selling your office. Sherman Adams, president Dwight Eisenhower's chief of staff, lost his job and ruined his reputation after he accepted a vicuña coat from a Boston textile manufacturer doing business with the federal government.
Trump has no reputable reputation to ruin. He's a snatch-and-grab artist.
'I think social media and Donald Trump's persona have numbed people to the idea that certain forms of behaviour are off-limits,' said Tim O'Brien, a Trump biographer. 'No institution has been able to rein in Donald Trump. He got impeached twice. Didn't matter, so Congress couldn't rein him in. He had all sorts of federal and state prosecutions that ended up going nowhere, so law enforcement couldn't rein him in. The media has been covering him as close as anyone could ever be covered, and the media couldn't rein him in. I think it makes people just sort of turn away and accept it as inevitable.'
Before he did his YMCA dance and scrammed early, the scamming Trump told the crypto enthusiasts at his golf club that he wasn't pushing crypto and bitcoin for himself.
'I really do it because I think it's the right thing to do,' he said.
In Trump's moral universe, the right thing to do is always the thing that makes him richer.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Independent
44 minutes ago
- Irish Independent
The art of political dressing: As Michelle Obama's new book will highlight, fashion choices can make political statements
It's an experience that's not unique to the former US first lady: politics and fashion go hand in hand. While some may think fashion is frivolous, getting dressed is a conscious act and one that can have even more weight when you're on the public stage. That's the reason world leaders often wear something from the country they are visiting when on official trips: think of Queen Elizabeth's shamrock-adorned dress for her historic state dinner in Dublin in 2011. But more often, it's a subtle form of communication that the best political movers know how to use to their advantage. Take the focus on Michelle Obama herself, for example. While she was criticised for having her arms on show or being too sexy in some of her looks, she championed designers from diverse backgrounds such as Jason Wu and Naeem Khan. Khan is the epitome of the American dream. Having grown up in Mumbai, he moved to America to pursue a career in fashion at 20. Barack Obama's campaign poster had 'hope' written in bold lettering, and what is more hopeful than the tale of a young immigrant who went on to dress the first lady? While fashion can display an important message, it's not always a positive one. Current US First Lady Melania Trump has had a plethora of well-deserved critiques on her fashion choices. The most notable was in 2018 when she visited a shelter in Texas where children of suspected illegal immigrants were housed. She chose to wear a Zara jacket that had 'I really don't care, do u?' written on the back. Though initially her representatives dismissed any significance to the message, saying it was 'just a jacket', she later claimed that she had been sending a message to the 'left-wing media' who criticised her. There seems to have been no lasting damage done – in the eyes of the fashion world at least. Where during their first term in office many designers refused to dress the Trumps and their wider circle, this time they have been embraced by big names such as Oscar de la Renta. It's not only women who are critiqued on their fashion choices: when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed up to meet President Donald Trump at the White House wearing his signature sweatshirt in February, he was met with hostility. Trump remarked 'You're all dressed up today', to which Zelensky replied he would wear a suit when the war is over — his wardrobe is a deliberate nod to his countrymen who are fighting on the front lines. Interestingly, Trump doesn't seem to expect the same standard of dress from ex-bestie-turned-enemy Elon Musk, who has been pictured in the Oval Office wearing slogan T-shirts and baseball caps. Proof that dressing down can also be a power play. As Michelle Obama put it when writing about her forthcoming book: 'The Look is about more than fashion. It's about confidence. It's about identity. It's about the power of authenticity.' What your Trump victory sneakers say about you… You don't exist. No really, does anyone actually own these gold, American flag-adorned 'Never Surrender' high-tops? For a mere $399 you too can be on the wrong side of history! Putting politics aside for one minute, who on earth is trusting Donald Trump with fashion choices? Presumably the same people who bought the $199 Fight Fight Fight desert boots, the $249 America's Superhero low-top trainers, and the $499 Trump golf shoes – limited to 1,000 pairs and available for both men and women from These sneakers are gaudy and cheap looking. In fact, if you bought these sneakers, I'm glad you're down $399, you don't deserve the cash.
Irish Independent
2 hours ago
- Irish Independent
The Irish Independent's View: Troops on the streets is a chilling moment for US democracy
He passionately believed change must be pursued without recourse to mob rule, even though he was often a victim of it. 'The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it,' he said. 'Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary, because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.' As protests over immigration raids spread to cities across the US, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Milwaukee, the danger of explosive clashes intensifies. Immigration Control and Enforcement (Ice) officers are said to have been given a quota of 3,000 arrests a day. Having National Guard troops and Marines deployed on city streets seems peculiarly un-American. And after five nights of demonstrations, California's Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has accused US president Donald Trump of misusing his power by mobilising troops. He has warned other states to prepare for similar unrest. Rioting has to be condemned, but many Americans believe the deployment was unnecessary, and calling in a Marine battalion as back-up could be inflammatory and provocative. Instead of de-escalating tensions, Mr Trump seems intent on confrontation. The president has vowed to 'liberate' Los Angeles, but has been accused by Mr Newsom of an attack on democracy. 'Democracy is under assault right before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived,' he said. We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now This Saturday, Washington will stage a military parade to coincide with the US army's 250th anniversary. It also happens to be Mr Trump's 79th birthday. Coming as it does a week after Mr Trump put the National Guard on the streets of LA – the first time in six decades a president has done so – in defiance of the state governor makes the situation extremely fraught. Mr Trump has exulted in his role as enforcer-in-chief in his less than 200 days in the White House. Steamrolling over institutions and legal norms, he has obliterated opponents. Many would prefer to see a less aggressive response to protests. Mr Newsom has appealed to the courts to become more involved. The fear is that the sovereignty of citizens is being undermined. There is also a worry Mr Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act, which would free National Guard units to suppress civil disorder. Using troops against US citizens could provoke a backlash. Deportations should follow due process and the rule of law, but putting soldiers on the streets to confront civilians is not something we are accustomed to seeing in the world's showcase for democracy. Dr King believed a riot was the 'language of the unheard', but his faith lay in unity. As he said: 'We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.' It falls to Mr Trump to take care it does not capsize.
The Journal
4 hours ago
- The Journal
US moves staff from embassy in Iraq as tensions with Iran over nuclear deal increase
THE US IS reducing the number of its staff at its embassy in Iraq and other bases in its control in the Middle East over security concerns as tensions with Iran have escalated. Iran and the US have concluded their fifth round of nuclear talks, seeking to reach a replacement of the 2015 accord, seeking that Tehran dismantle its nuclear weapons capabilities, that President Donald Trump scrapped in 2018. Iran this evening threatened to target US military bases in the region if conflict breaks out. Trump has said he is 'less confident' that a nuclear deal can be reached. Since returning to the White House in January, the Trump administration has sought to impose pressure on Iran to reach a deal. It has warned of a military response, if it fails. Speaking this evening, Iran's defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said all of US-controlled bases in the region are 'within out reach' and that they will be targeted 'without hesitation' if conflict breaks out. 'God willing, things won't reach that point, and the talks will succeed,' the minister said, adding that the US side 'will suffer more losses' if it came to conflict. In January 2020, Iran fired missiles at bases in Iraq housing American troops in retaliation for the US strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani days before at Baghdad airport. Dozens of US soldiers suffered traumatic brain injuries. Cargo ships travelling through the Persian Gulf have also been advised to proceed with caution by the British-navy-run UK Maritime Trade Operations agency. Advertisement The US has multiple bases in the Middle East, with the largest located in Qatar. Sources have told the AFP News Agency that staff at an embassy in Iran have been reduced today. Trump, tonight, has confirmed reports that staff have been removed from 'dangerous' locations in the Middle East. It comes as talks between Iran and the US have reached an impasse in recent weeks over Tehran's uranium enrichment operations – which it has said is a 'non-negotiable'. The country currently enriches uranium – meaning, to increase its concentration – to 60%. It is far above the 3.67% limit set in the 2015 deal. Enriching uranium can assist in the production of nuclear warheads – though Iran's operations are still short of the 90% concentration needed to create the weapons. Trump had expressed optimism about the talks securing an end to Iran's programme during a trip to the region last month, but he told US media today that he feels 'less confident' that a deal can be reached. He has discussed the possibility of his country and Israel working together to get Iran to reach a deal, or cooperating militarily if not. The intenrational nuclear watchdog met this week and concluded yesterday that there has been 'less than satisfactory' cooperation from Tehran , particularly in explaining past cases of nuclear material found at undeclared sites. Iran has criticised the report as unbalanced, saying it relied on 'forged documents' provided by Israel. - © AFP 2025 , with reporting by Muiris Ó Cearbhaill
