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Boston Globe
16-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Trump is taking credit for Middle East deals that predate his presidency
Advertisement When Trump was in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, the White House announced $200 billion in 'new' commercial deals with the UAE. Much of the corporate funding came from a cloud computing deal between Amazon and UAE state-owned telecommunications company e&, which the White House claimed would contribute $181 billion for the local economy by 2033. But Amazon had already announced that contract in October, and the company had only committed about $1 billion over six years. The $181 billion estimate came from an Amazon-sponsored study, and it was a broad calculation of how much the UAE could increase its gross domestic product if it started using more cloud services. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The math behind the White House's claim that Trump secured 'trillions' on this trip is fuzzy even including the contracts that predate his presidency. The sum of the deals is under $1 trillion, but the White House is also counting announcements it made months before the trip, including a vague plan that United Arab Emirates said would result in $1.4 trillion in investment in the United States over the next decade. The UAE and White House previously announced that deal in March. Advertisement President Trump at a business event in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, on Friday, May 16, 2025. DOUG MILLS/NYT The White House did not explain why its announcements included deals that predate Trump's presidency. 'The Washington Post is trying and failing to discredit the trillions of dollars in good deals secured by President Trump on his Middle East trip,' White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. She added that the deals included 'reaffirmed investments' from companies that had agreements in the region before Trump's presidency, including McDermott and the technology company Parsons. McDermott International President and CEO Michael McKelvy said its partnerships in Qatar were developed over decades, and the company remains committed 'to support Qatar's energy development plans for decades to come.' Amazon did not comment, but on Friday the company announced a new offering to accelerate cloud adoption in the United Arab Emirates. It did not announce any additional funds beyond the $1 billion it announced last year. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Trump has been escalating pressure on leaders in the Middle East to up their investment in the United States, and his Gulf counterparts appear willing to partake in the optics of splashy spending as they seek to firm up their relationships with the president known for his penchant for pageantry. But economists, and people familiar with the coffers of the Saudi government particularly, question whether the countries can live up to these bold promises - even over the course of a decade. Advertisement 'It's sort of like the region's tying a big bow around itself,' said Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. 'It's a big box but maybe it's a smaller present inside.' Officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates included deals that predated Trump's presidency in their announcements to inflate the investment figures, according to an official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private discussions. One businessman with close ties to Saudi Arabia described the creative math underway in Riyadh ahead of Trump's visit. The Saudi royal court contacted 'all the top businessmen' in the Gulf nation 'and they were asked, 'How much have you invested in the United States in the last two years? How much have you put in the United States in any kind of investment - real estate, stocks, bonds?' the businessman said, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize that relationship. The implication, he added, was that the Saudi government was seeking to assemble a set of numbers that could be included in the total investments announced during Trump's visit. Trump on Tuesday announced that the Saudi government would invest $600 billion in the United States, while still repeatedly teasing that the country should invest up to $1 trillion. But the deals that the White House announced in the country so far total less than $300 billion. Some of the projects in that tally were previously announced, including some of the plans to improve infrastructure like the King Salman International Airport. One of the U.S. companies, Jacobs, had announced it was selected for the airport project in August. Advertisement The Trump administration has also taken a broad view of what it counts as a foreign investment, including military purchases in its estimates. Two of the arms deals it announced appeared to predate the Trump administration. The Biden administration in 2022 notified Congress of its intention to sell Qatar a $1 billion 'Fixed Site - Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aerial System Integrated Defeat System (FS-LIDS)' built by Raytheon to counter unmanned aircraft. On Wednesday, the White House announced that Raytheon had 'secured a $1 billion agreement for Qatar's acquisition' of that same system. A Raytheon spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House on Wednesday also announced a $2 billion General Atomics deal to sell drones to Qatar. But that sale has 'been in the works for years,' according to a congressional aide , and the notification was sent to Congress in March. The White House said another $38 billion represented 'potential investments' that were outlined in a 'statement of intent' with Qatar. 'A lot of it is going to be aspirational,' Hussein Ibish, a senior resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said of the big numbers rolled out in Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi. 'A lot of it is going to be promised and not delivered on.' Following the investments announced during the Trump visit, officials in the region acknowledged that Saudi Arabia doesn't have enough cash on hand to fund everything that was promised, said an individual with knowledge of the business community in Saudi Arabi. Some are questioning if it could even fund half. The kingdom's ability to come up with the cash could depend a lot on how quickly the investments are rolled out and if it decides to borrow money that would then be allocated for the U.S. investments, the person said. Saudi Arabia's budget has been strapped by stubbornly moderate oil prices and colossal domestic spending - tens of billions of dollars on ambitious projects like a desert megalopolis serviced by robots and a cube-shaped sky scraper. In some cases the kingdom has been forced to scale back elements of its larger projects. Advertisement 'There's a growing list of demands in terms of spending and investment relative to a shrinking pot of oil money that's going to be coming in this year,' said Tim Callen, a visiting fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute. Trump has at times appeared to acknowledge the competing demands confronting the Saudi government. He said at a conference in February that he has told Saudi Arabia's leaders 'to put your country first.' 'Whether it's Saudi Arabia, whether it's something else, you're going to put your country first, but we're going to have plenty left over to help others also,' he said. 'As long as you invest in America, build in America, and hire in America, that means that I'm fighting for you.' Experts studying the Middle East said the White House's rhetoric on this trip echoed Trump's proclamations in 2017. Trump has claimed that during his first presidency, Saudi Arabia agreed to buy $450 billion in U.S. products. But sales on that scale did not materialize, according to an analysis that Callen conducted. During that trip, Trump compiled 'a list of real deals that he has struck, aspirational deals that may or may not have been struck, phony deals that won't be struck, and deals struck by his Democratic predecessor that will be credited to himself. And he comes up with a gigantic number close to a trillion,' Ibish said. Advertisement But this time, he's doing it 'three different times.'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What does ‘being best' mean to Melania Trump now?
There she was. In the White House. Black leather pencil skirt. Pencil-thin heels. White blazer, draped like a cape over her shoulders. Melania Trump is not often seen inside these walls, let alone heard. But on Thursday, at a reception for military mothers, she gave her first public remarks there since President Donald Trump returned to office 108 days earlier. The first lady approached the lectern in the East Room. She thanked her husband, the president, for introducing her. A few people in the crowd clapped tentatively. Melania continued over them, she and the audience feeling for a rhythm like rusty dance partners. 'Motherhood ...,' the first lady began. The applause was no longer tentative, and she yielded to it. In the world of Trump's political movement - with many talkers, posters and flood-the-zone filibusterers - Melania's reticence has given her something of an oracular quality. 'It kind of reminds me of Greta Garbo,' says Katherine Jellison, a professor of history at Ohio University who studies first ladies, referring to the famous actress turned recluse whose rare public appearances incited frenzy. 'The relative rarity of Melania Trump's appearances do spark greater interest when she does show up.' When the first lady's guests finished applauding, they were silent, hanging on her every word. She picked up where she had left off about motherhood: 'The life-changing event that makes women invincible and exposed at the same time.' Melania described women's 'sacred strength' as 'unwavering love' and 'nurturing wisdom.' She urged the mothers in the room to 'prioritize your well-being,' because their health is 'the bedrock of a brighter future for our children.' Melania remains a bit of a mystery - unusual for a first lady in her second term, according to Jellison. Trump returned to Washington with a clear and immediate agenda for how he wanted to grow and exercise his power. His wife, not so much. But she made not one but two rare appearances on Thursday, speaking her maternal truth before an audience of military moms, then, a few hours later, returning to the East Room to unveil a postage stamp honoring former first lady Barbara Bush. And on Friday morning, her office announced that the $25 million in the president's budget to support youths transitioning out of foster care had been secured in recognition of the anniversary of Be Best, her signature first-term initiative. Melania hasn't been entirely invisible, or inaudible, in Washington. She spoke at a March event on Capitol Hill in support of a bill aimed at deterring the spread of nonconsensual explicit images (i.e. 'revenge porn') and an April ceremony honoring recipients of the International Women of Courage Award at the State Department. She attended her husband's first address to a joint session of Congress and the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, where she chatted with children and read them a story in the Amazon-sponsored reading nook. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) There was the trip she made with her husband to survey the wildfire devastation in California, shortly after Trump's swearing-in, where cameras captured Melania comforting victims in her native Slovenian. (So did a documentary film crew from Amazon, which struck a reported $40 million deal for a 'behind the scenes' look at Melania's life in the East Wing.) Late last month, she and Trump traveled to Rome for Pope Francis's funeral - but went their separate ways when the couple returned to the United States on April 26, which also happened to be Melania's 55th birthday. Nevertheless, in her second term, Melania appears to be keeping the trappings of her office at arm's length. The White House's gilded makeover has been at the direction of the president, assuming the first lady's traditional role of decorator in chief. In February, her office announced that public tours of the White House would resume, but it was Trump who showed up to greet visitors on the first day. And it was President Trump who greeted the East Room guests Thursday. His introductory remarks ran about three times as long as his wife's speech. He talked about the 'big deal with the U.K.' on trade and 'big rare earth deal with Ukraine' and the 'very big conversation in Switzerland taking place this weekend with China - has anyone heard of China recently?' In the spirit of Mother's Day, he recalled his own, a figure whom he seldom mentions. 'I had a great mother - I had a mother,' the president said. 'She was such an angel. She could be very tough, I will say. She had her tough moments - some difficult moments ... but overall, very, very good.' Anyway. Melania is 'one of the best moms that I know,' he said. 'Sometimes she's almost too good. She is so good with Barron that he's grown up strong and nice, and he's a good boy.' The first lady stared up at him with a closed-mouth smile, gently clapping her manicured hands together when he paused for applause. - - - The last time the Trumps were in the White House, Barron was dealing with the usual challenges of adolescence and the unusual ones of being the president's son. And motherhood seemed to shape Melania's ideas for what she could do as first lady. In her 2024 memoir, Melania recalled a particularly stinging episode of 'the poison of social media' when, a few weeks after the 2016 election, comedian Rosie O'Donnell wondered on Twitter about whether Barron, then 10, might be autistic, linking to a YouTube video suggesting as much. (The person who made the video later apologized, stating: 'I falsely correlated him trying to stay awake and occasionally doing quirky things with him suffering from autism.' O'Donnell also apologized.) 'The sheer malice of O'Donnell's act made me furious,' Melania wrote in her memoir, where she also noted that Barron is not autistic. 'There was a child at the other end of that tweet.' Stephen Balkam, the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Family Online Safety Institute, remembers talking to Melania at a roundtable he participated in with tech corporations and advocacy groups in 2018. With respect to her son, Balkam recalls the first lady raising a common parenting worry: 'She was very concerned about how much he was playing computer games,' he says. 'So we ended up talking about screen time and then, of course, cyberbullying itself.' Be Best had three pillars: the well-being of children, online safety and tackling opioid abuse. 'There is one goal to Be Best, and that is to educate children about the many issues they're facing today,' Melania announced in the Rose Garden on May 7, 2018 - a date her husband officially designated as 'Be Best Day,' via presidential proclamation. For the next few years, the first lady hosted conversations, made speeches and took trips to highlight her priorities. With such a small policy team, she often partnered with federal agencies to execute projects. (Her 2018 trip to Africa, for example, was done in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development - which the new Trump administration has now gutted.) Be Best always had an irony problem. How could the first lady advocate against cyberbullying when her husband constantly turned to social media to bully those he saw as his political enemies? 'She isn't in lockstep with Trump on certain things,' says Kate Bennett, who previously covered the Trumps for CNN and wrote a book about Melania in 2019. 'Instead of getting credit for taking on cyberbullying, she was slammed for it.' The effort also struggled to measure its own impact. 'I think it was very well-intentioned, but I wasn't clear of what the goal was, ultimately, and what would look like success after four years of the project,' Balkam says. 'There didn't seem to be any benchmarks.' On Wednesday, Be Best Day passed almost without notice. The first lady had no public events; whether she was at the White House, her spokesperson did not say. Near the end of the day, her office issued a statement supporting the president's proclamation declaring May as National Foster Care Month, noting that it coincided with the Be Best anniversary. What, exactly, is Be Best this time around? Her office declined multiple requests to define the initiative on the record. There are clues, however, in Melania's public appearances and statements. That press release about National Foster Care Month said that Be Best 'supports children's well-being, including individuals within the foster care community.' There were Be Best-branded activities at the Easter Egg Roll, such as hopscotch and a station for writing letters to service members. Her guests for Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress included a 15-year-old high school student who had been bullied with digital deepfakes. Then there's her support for the anti-revenge-porn legislation, called the Take It Down Act. The first lady's staff reached out to the offices of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) early in Trump's second term to express interest in working on the bill. In March, Melania hosted a roundtable on Capitol Hill with lawmakers and advocates to bring attention to it. 'That's a great example of how a first lady's advocacy can be used well,' says Anita McBride, who served as chief of staff to Laura Bush and has written a book about first ladies. The bill has since passed both the House and Senate. There was little doubt that the legislation would get through Congress eventually, but Hill aides and advocates attribute Melania's support to the speed of the bill's passage. Melania returned to the East Room on Thursday afternoon for yet another event: the unveiling of a postage stamp honoring Barbara Bush to an audience of the former first lady's friends and former staffers - as well as some of her children, grandchildren and cousins, easily identified by their broad cheekbones and falcon noses. (Though there weren't as many Bushes present as there could have been. The stamp unveiling conflicted with an annual event hosted by former first lady Laura Bush. Of Barbara's kids, Neil and Doro were at the White House; Jeb, George and Marvin were not.) Melania sat onstage as representatives from the U.S. Postal Service and Barbara Bush's foundation delivered remarks, her feline stare flicking between the speakers and the audience. She broke into a smile only a few times - including when Doro Bush Koch recalled that she and the other Bush kids had a nickname for their mom: 'the Enforcer.' Then it was time for Melania to speak, again. She used her time to note the importance of 'strong American families,' where 'the principles of morality, ambition and empathy take root.' She highlighted Barbara's 'iconic' 1990 commencement speech at Wellesley College for how it encouraged young women to pursue their dreams. 'Who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House - and I wish him well,' the first lady joked. Then she praised Barbara for how she 'supported women's empowerment, changed the national conversation on AIDS and took a stance supporting gay rights.' Melania revealed more of her personal beliefs in four minutes than she had in the previous four months. Then she vanished through the East Room's doors - invincible and exposed at the same time. Related Content For a Howard mom of three, earning her doctorate is a family victory Did McDonald's price itself out of a segment it dominated for decades? Trump tells Congress to raise taxes on the rich in budget bill
NZ Herald
12-05-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
What does ‘being best' mean to Melania Trump now?
'Motherhood ...,' the first lady began. The applause was no longer tentative, and she yielded to it. In the world of Trump's political movement – with many talkers, posters and flood-the-zone filibusterers – Melania's reticence has given her something of an oracular quality. 'It kind of reminds me of Greta Garbo,' says Katherine Jellison, a professor of history at Ohio University who studies first ladies, referring to the famous actor turned recluse whose rare public appearances incited frenzy. 'The relative rarity of Melania Trump's appearances do spark greater interest when she does show up.' When the first lady's guests finished applauding, they were silent, hanging on her every word. She picked up where she had left off about motherhood: 'The life-changing event that makes women invincible and exposed at the same time.' Melania described women's 'sacred strength' as 'unwavering love' and 'nurturing wisdom'. She urged the mothers in the room to 'prioritise your wellbeing,' because their health is 'the bedrock of a brighter future for our children'. Melania remains a bit of a mystery – unusual for a first lady in her second term, according to Jellison. Trump returned to Washington with a clear and immediate agenda for how he wanted to grow and exercise his power. His wife, not so much. But she made not one but two rare appearances on Thursday, speaking her maternal truth before an audience of military mums, then, a few hours later, returning to the East Room to unveil a postage stamp honouring former first lady Barbara Bush. And on Friday morning, her office announced that the $25 million in the President's budget to support youths transitioning out of foster care had been secured in recognition of the anniversary of Be Best, her signature first-term initiative. Melania hasn't been entirely invisible, or inaudible, in Washington. She spoke at a March event on Capitol Hill in support of a Bill aimed at deterring the spread of non-consensual explicit images (i.e. 'revenge porn') and an April ceremony honouring recipients of the International Women of Courage Award at the State Department. She attended her husband's first address to a joint session of Congress and the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, where she chatted with children and read them a story in the Amazon-sponsored reading nook. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) There was the trip she made with her husband to survey the wildfire devastation in California, shortly after Trump's swearing-in, where cameras captured Melania comforting victims in her native Slovenian. (So did a documentary film crew from Amazon, which struck a reported $40 million deal for a 'behind the scenes' look at Melania's life in the East Wing.) Late last month, she and Trump travelled to Rome for Pope Francis' funeral – but went their separate ways when the couple returned to the United States on April 26, which also happened to be Melania's 55th birthday. Nevertheless, in her second term, Melania appears to be keeping the trappings of her office at arm's length. The White House's gilded makeover has been at the direction of the President, assuming the First Lady's traditional role of decorator in chief. In February, her office announced that public tours of the White House would resume, but it was Trump who showed up to greet visitors on the first day. And it was President Trump who greeted the East Room guests Thursday. His introductory remarks ran about three times as long as his wife's speech. He talked about the 'big deal with the UK' on trade and 'big rare earth deal with Ukraine' and the 'very big conversation in Switzerland taking place this weekend with China – has anyone heard of China recently?' In the spirit of Mother's Day, he recalled his own, a figure whom he seldom mentions. 'I had a great mother – I had a mother,' the President said. 'She was such an angel. She could be very tough, I will say. She had her tough moments – some difficult moments ... but overall, very, very good.' Anyway. Melania is 'one of the best moms that I know,' he said. 'Sometimes she's almost too good. She is so good with Barron that he's grown up strong and nice, and he's a good boy.' The First Lady stared up at him with a closed-mouth smile, gently clapping her manicured hands together when he paused for applause. – The last time the Trumps were in the White House, Barron was dealing with the usual challenges of adolescence and the unusual ones of being the President's son. And motherhood seemed to shape Melania's ideas for what she could do as First Lady. In her 2024 memoir, Melania recalled a particularly stinging episode of 'the poison of social media' when, a few weeks after the 2016 election, comedian Rosie O'Donnell wondered on Twitter about whether Barron, then 10, might be autistic, linking to a YouTube video suggesting as much. (The person who made the video later apologised, stating: 'I falsely correlated him trying to stay awake and occasionally doing quirky things with him suffering from autism.' O'Donnell also apologised.) 'The sheer malice of O'Donnell's act made me furious,' Melania wrote in her memoir, where she also noted that Barron is not autistic. 'There was a child at the other end of that tweet.' Stephen Balkam, the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Family Online Safety Institute, remembers talking to Melania at a roundtable he participated in with tech corporations and advocacy groups in 2018. With respect to her son, Balkam recalls the first lady raising a common parenting worry: 'She was very concerned about how much he was playing computer games,' he says. 'So we ended up talking about screen time and then, of course, cyberbullying itself.' Be Best had three pillars: the wellbeing of children, online safety and tackling opioid abuse. 'There is one goal to Be Best, and that is to educate children about the many issues they're facing today,' Melania announced in the Rose Garden on May 7, 2018 – a date her husband officially designated as 'Be Best Day,' via presidential proclamation. For the next few years, the first lady hosted conversations, made speeches and took trips to highlight her priorities. With such a small policy team, she often partnered with federal agencies to execute projects. (Her 2018 trip to Africa, for example, was done in conjunction with the US Agency for International Development – which the new Trump administration has now gutted.) Advertise with NZME. Be Best always had an irony problem. How could the first lady advocate against cyberbullying when her husband constantly turned to social media to bully those he saw as his political enemies? 'She isn't in lockstep with Trump on certain things,' says Kate Bennett, who previously covered the Trumps for CNN and wrote a book about Melania in 2019. 'Instead of getting credit for taking on cyberbullying, she was slammed for it.' The effort also struggled to measure its own impact. 'I think it was very well-intentioned, but I wasn't clear of what the goal was, ultimately, and what would look like success after four years of the project,' Balkam says. 'There didn't seem to be any benchmarks.' On Wednesday, Be Best Day passed almost without notice. The first lady had no public events; whether she was at the White House, her spokesperson did not say. Near the end of the day, her office issued a statement supporting the President's proclamation declaring May as National Foster Care Month, noting that it coincided with the Be Best anniversary. What, exactly, is Be Best this time around? Her office declined multiple requests to define the initiative on the record. There are clues, however, in Melania's public appearances and statements. That press release about National Foster Care Month said that Be Best 'supports children's wellbeing, including individuals within the foster care community'. There were Be Best-branded activities at the Easter Egg Roll, such as hopscotch and a station for writing letters to service members. Her guests for Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress included a 15-year-old high school student who had been bullied with digital deepfakes. Then there's her support for the anti-revenge-porn legislation, called the Take It Down Act. The first lady's staff reached out to the offices of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Representative María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) early in Trump's second term to express interest in working on the Bill. In March, Melania hosted a roundtable on Capitol Hill with lawmakers and advocates to bring attention to it. 'That's a great example of how a first lady's advocacy can be used well,' says Anita McBride, who served as chief of staff to Laura Bush and has written a book about first ladies. The Bill has since passed both the House and Senate. There was little doubt that the legislation would get through Congress eventually, but Hill aides and advocates attribute Melania's support to the speed of the Bill's passage. Melania returned to the East Room on Thursday afternoon for yet another event: the unveiling of a postage stamp honouring Barbara Bush to an audience of the former first lady's friends and former staffers – as well as some of her children, grandchildren and cousins, easily identified by their broad cheekbones and falcon noses. (Though there weren't as many Bushes present as there could have been. The stamp unveiling conflicted with an annual event hosted by former first lady Laura Bush. Of Barbara's kids, Neil and Doro were at the White House; Jeb, George and Marvin were not.) Melania sat onstage as representatives from the US Postal Service and Barbara Bush's foundation delivered remarks, her feline stare flicking between the speakers and the audience. She broke into a smile only a few times – including when Doro Bush Koch recalled that she and the other Bush kids had a nickname for their mum: 'the Enforcer'. Then it was time for Melania to speak, again. She used her time to note the importance of 'strong American families,' where 'the principles of morality, ambition and empathy take root'. She highlighted Barbara's 'iconic' 1990 commencement speech at Wellesley College for how it encouraged young women to pursue their dreams. 'Who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House – and I wish him well,' the first lady joked. Then she praised Barbara for how she 'supported women's empowerment, changed the national conversation on Aids and took a stance supporting gay rights'. Melania revealed more of her personal beliefs in four minutes than she had in the previous four months. Then she vanished through the East Room's doors – invincible and exposed at the same time.
Buzz Feed
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
25 Wild Pictures From Donald Trump's White House Egg Roll
1. The annual White House Egg Roll was held today! 2. Apparently, 42,000 guests were expected to partake in the festivities on the White House lawn. 3. This year, there was a new bunny suit. From this: To this: 4. There were some interesting fashion choices like this "Hell Yeah" blazer, accompanied by a picture from Trump's assassination attempt. 5. For the first time ever, the egg roll had corporate sponsors. This year, they included YouTube, Meta, and Amazon. 6. There were 30,000 real eggs used (!!) at this event this year. It goes without saying, but that's like the GDP of a small country. 7. There was a Meta-sponsored tent where you could take a picture in front of a DC location tag. 8. There was also a photo opp where kids could pretend to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. 9. Donald Trump autographed children's coloring sheets. How nice! 10. He posed surrounded by children with a collector's card depicting the assassination attempt. 11. A man in an astronaut suit was there. 12. Families could take a picture at this Amazon-sponsored display thing. 13. Children had the opportunity to color in the White House limousine, "Beast." 14. Trump even joined in on the coloring festivities. 15. Kids could dress up as the Founding Fathers. 16. They could even get their pictures taken at a Founding Fathers wall. 17. There were Melania-inspired "Be Best" postcards. 18. Melania also read a book. 19. Trump officiated the race. 20. He gave them some sort of pep talk before it began. 21. I imagine he said something like, "DON'T FUCK IT UP." Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images 22. Kids in the crowd donned their finest MAGA hats. 23. Melania was really impressed by this one. 24. Trump was giving out high-fives. 25. And a good time was had by all, I guess.
