Latest news with #TrumpOrganization
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Michael Saylor Says Bitcoin Is 'Engineered To Outperfom' And 'Going To Go Faster Than Gold:' Peter Schiff Says 'He Still Refuses To Debate...'
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor took a dig at economist Peter Schiff on Thursday while highlighting Bitcoin's (CRYPTO: BTC) superiority over all assets, including gold. What Happened: Speaking at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, Saylor said that Bitcoin is 'engineered to outperform' all capital assets in the world. 'It's going to grow faster than the S&P, it's going to appreciate faster than gold. Sorry, Peter!' Saylor poked fun at Schiff, a long-time gold advocate. Trending: — no wallets, just price speculation and free paper trading to practice different strategies. Schiff was quick to react, taking satisfaction in the fact that Saylor recognized him as the 'world's leading' gold advocate. 'It's just too bad he still refuses to debate gold versus Bitcoin with me,' Schiff said. Why It Matters: The friendly banter comes after Eric Trump, executive vice president of The Trump Organization, praised Saylor's Bitcoin optimism and said that the cryptocurrency space is 'fortunate' to have him. Saylor, one of the most ardent supporters of Bitcoin, has put his money where his mouth is. His company Strategy is at the forefront of Bitcoin's corporate adoption, owning a BTC stockpile worth more than $61 billion as of this writing, according to Schiff, on the other hand, maintains that gold's proven track record makes it a more reliable investment. Interestingly, Schiff participated in the Bitcoin conference to represent an opposing view about the asset. Read Next: New to crypto? Get up to $400 in rewards for successfully completing short educational courses and making your first qualifying trade on Coinbase. A must-have for all crypto enthusiasts: Sign up for the Gemini Credit Card today and earn rewards on Bitcoin Ether, or 60+ other tokens, with every purchase. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock Send To MSN: Send to MSN This article Michael Saylor Says Bitcoin Is 'Engineered To Outperfom' And 'Going To Go Faster Than Gold:' Peter Schiff Says 'He Still Refuses To Debate...' originally appeared on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
NBC News
11 hours ago
- Business
- NBC News
A cutout of President Donald Trump holding a bitcoin token at the Moonshot booth during the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Bridget Bennett / Bloomberg via Getty Images Crypto Trump's crypto complicates Las Vegas wedding between MAGA and bitcoin At the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, attendees questioned the effects of Trump's meme coin.
May 31, 2025, 7:19 AM EDT By David Ingram LAS VEGAS — At bitcoin's biggest event of the year, the Trump administration was omnipresent. Vice President JD Vance was the keynote speaker at the Bitcoin 2025 conference Wednesday, President Donald Trump's sons Eric and Donald Jr. appeared on multiple panels, and a delegation of White House advisers including crypto czar David Sacks praised crypto as the future of technology. The crypto community is used to being treated with skepticism and scorn from many politicians and lawmakers. But a warm embrace from the Trump White House still hasn't erased some crypto investors' skepticism. As Trump has been loosening government oversight and regulations around cryptocurrency, he has also waded into his own crypto project: the $TRUMP coin. Earlier in May, Trump hosted a private dinner at his Washington, D.C.-area golf club for top $TRUMP coin buyers, who on average spent more than $1 million per seat and sparked widespread concern about opportunities for influence-buying. The $TRUMP coin is what industry professionals call a meme coin — meaning it offers little technical innovation or practical use and that its value is extremely volatile, relying on cultural cachet and symbolism. To many serious investors in bitcoin or other established cryptocurrencies, meme coins are seen as a hazard to the long-term success of crypto. On the conference floor, some bitcoin holders predicted that crypto novices would lose money on the $TRUMP coin, hurting the reputation of the entire industry. While many attendees liked Trump's crypto policies, they weren't sold on his coin. 'A lot of them will get burned to leave and never come back — which I think is a terrible outcome, and I don't like it,' said Seth for Privacy, the vice president of crypto wallet software company Cake Wallet. The host of a privacy podcast, he declined to share his last name and is known online as Seth for Privacy. 'Obviously, the best-case scenario would be none of that stuff exists,' he said of meme coins. He said he still hopes that $TRUMP coin and others like it could be an 'on-ramp' to bitcoin. More than 67,000 buyers of the Trump meme coin have acquired it with debit cards, a likely sign that they were crypto neophytes, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Bitcoin investor Ryan Nichols, who traveled to the Bitcoin 2025 conference from Austin, Texas, said he's a Trump fan but wouldn't touch Trump's digital currency. 'I love Trump. I really want to see what he does to improve this country. But at the same time, I don't think his coin is going to be much better than the Hawk Tuah coin,' he said, referring to a meme coin that crashed in December and is now the subject of lawsuits. 'I think it will continue to be a pretty good investment for a few more months at most, and then probably drop,' he said. The Trump Organization and the website administrators of where the meme token is for sale, did not respond to requests for comment Friday. The White House declined to comment, saying in an email, 'The $TRUMP meme coin has nothing to do with the White House!' The price of the $TRUMP coin fluctuates. It sold for less than $1 a coin on Jan. 17, the night Trump announced it with a post on X. Within two days, it soared past $70, according to data from research site CoinGecko. Its value plunged after Trump's inauguration and has since bounced in a range from about $8 to $16 a coin. On Friday, it was trading at around $11, with a total market capitalization of $2.2 billion, according to CoinGecko. First lady Melania Trump launched a meme coin of her own, called $MELANIA, also in January. Its price has cratered from more than $13 a coin to $0.32 as of Friday, according to CoinGecko. Two Trump-affiliated companies own 80% of the $TRUMP coin project. While their ability to sell is restricted in the short term, the creators get a fee for every trade. Those fees have added up to more than $324 million since January, according to the research firm Chainalysis. The amount going to Trump personally is not known. Another conference attendee, Edan Yago, a co-founder of the startup BitcoinOS, called the $TRUMP coin a form of legal corruption and not a good use of the underlying technology. 'Trump has discovered that he can issue a token and have people buy that token. Given our current legal system, it's all fine, and so there's new forms of graft and new forms of corruption that have come part and parcel with this new technology,' he said in an interview at the conference. He compared meme coins to brothels on the edge of a gold rush. 'You always have this happen whenever there's massive growth,' he said. Audrey Geiger, another bitcoin investor, said she voted for Trump and likes that he has loosened regulations on cryptocurrency, but she said she wouldn't buy the $TRUMP coin. 'Never touched the stuff,' she said. 'I just ignore that. It's all noise. It's gambling.' The comments are a sign of a tension in the marriage between the MAGA and crypto movements. The two groups formed an alliance last year, when Trump was seeking support for his return to the White House and the crypto industry was looking for changes in federal policy. Trump had previously been a harsh critic of cryptocurrency, saying in 2021 that it 'seems like a scam,' but he flipped in the following years. He spoke at last year's bitcoin conference, made a series of promises to support crypto in office and now calls himself 'the crypto president.' Trump has made aggressive moves to deregulate the cryptocurrency industry and has vowed to launch a government-owned ' strategic reserve ' of digital currency. Fueled in part by those actions, bitcoin soared to a record high of more than $111,000 in May. 'As soon as he won the election, that set in stone that he was the face of crypto for at least the next four years,' Nichols said. Trump's coin has been widely criticized, with government ethics experts and Democratic politicians decrying it as a breach of presidential norms and a vector for possible attempts at influence-buying. Some Republican lawmakers said Trump's dinner with $TRUMP coin owners made them uncomfortable. Jason Jisa, who attended the Bitcoin 2025 conference as a vendor selling Trump-themed merchandise, said he owns bitcoin but not Trump's coin. Wearing a gold- and silver-colored sequin jacket, he said the meme coin has left him stumped. 'It's something we're all paying attention to, trying to figure it out, right? It's something new,' he said. New Hampshire state Rep. Keith Ammon, a Republican, spoke onstage at the conference about his role in creating his state's pathbreaking cryptocurrency reserve. In an interview, he said Trump's coin shouldn't be part of such a reserve fund, which under New Hampshire law is limited to digital assets with a market capitalization of over $500 billion. 'A meme coin is like a casino chip: You might get lucky on it, but it's not a long-term store of value. It's a Skee-Ball token,' he said. By contrast, he said he believes bitcoin 'is the digital version of the bar of gold.' But even as many bitcoin enthusiasts expressed frustration with Trump's meme coin, none of the conference attendees interviewed by NBC News suggested there was anything to be done about it other than to try to persuade Trump to back off. They all said they oppose federal regulation of cryptocurrency, preferring to let meme coin buyers beware. Seth for Privacy said the community needs to 'take the good with the bad.' 'If you could limit what cryptocurrencies people could launch or what meme coins could exist, necessarily you could limit what freedom use cases could exist with these things as well,' he said. At the three-day conference at the Venetian resort and casino, Trump's name, likeness and slogans were everywhere: on artwork for sale, on hats and clothing and on the lips of speakers. A Trump look-alike roamed the expo floor. And onstage, speakers reinforced the mutual benefits of the MAGA-crypto marriage. They praised Trump's overhaul of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which previously classified many digital tokens as securities under a 1933 law. And they extolled Trump's pardon of Ross Ulbricht, who in 2015 was sentenced to life in prison for running the dark web marketplace Silk Road. Prosecutors had blamed Silk Road for six drug overdose deaths, while Trump called the sentence too harsh. The White House dispatched a cadre of advisers to speak at the conference, an unusual show of force from the U.S. government at an event that's explicitly anti-government. Sacks, the White House czar for crypto and artificial intelligence, said onstage that the Trump administration had already delivered much of what the industry had on its wish list, and he solicited ideas from the audience about what more the administration could do for crypto. 'I think by August, we might have achieved the crypto agenda in Washington,' Sacks said onstage Tuesday. 'What would you guys like to see? What else is on your wish list?" Crypto booster Tyler Winklevoss, onstage with Sacks, said the U.S. government should acquire more bitcoin, prompting applause from the audience. Don Jr. and Eric Trump predicted at the conference that bitcoin's price would keep rising to record highs. And Vance, who said he still owns bitcoin that he's held for years, urged conference attendees to get involved in politics including the 2026 midterm elections, or else face a potential crackdown by crypto skeptics. 'Don't ignore politics, because I guarantee you, my friends, politics is not going to ignore this community,' Vance said. Panel moderators did not raise the subject of the $TRUMP meme coin onstage with Sacks, the Trump brothers or others from Trump world. The subject appeared not to come up at all in the conference's official programming, even though many attendees had closely followed news about the coin with concern. Some bitcoin holders said that the depth of the Trump-crypto alliance made them a little uncomfortable. They noted that bitcoin was invented in 2008 to be independent of any government or other central authority. 'The people that are in politics are kind of the bandwagoners,' said Dustin Lee, a conference attendee who said he's been working in crypto for eight years and has his own meme coin, called Quai Boss. He said he was OK with the politicians' presence, though. 'We need the stragglers to get into the space, to bring on the rest of the people,' he said. Geiger said that although she likes Trump and his policies, she's still pessimistic in general about politicians and their intentions toward bitcoin. 'I don't want to be blindsided. I don't want to be like, 'Oh, everything's all right now, because the orange guy won.' It's not that. Some of the things are moving slowly in a direction I love. But on the whole, politicians are gonna politician. They're gonna do their thing.' David Ingram David Ingram is a tech reporter for NBC News.
Newsweek
13 hours ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Full List of Trump's Foreign Real Estate Ventures Underway Around the World
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Before stepping into the Oval Office, Donald Trump was widely known as a real estate mogul at the helm of the Trump Organization, the family empire now steered by his sons, Eric and Donald Jr. The family business is rapidly expanding, breaking ground across several continents as Trump, who has stepped aside from its daily operations, serves as president of the United States. Many have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest involving Trump's family and ongoing U.S. trade negotiations with foreign countries. Newsweek has reached out to the Trump Organization for comment via email on Friday. Why It Matters Concerns over blurred lines between politics and personal business have repeatedly surfaced during both Trump administrations. The Trump Organization continues to pursue real estate ventures across the world while Trump is in the Oval Office. Trump's investments, assets and business interests are in a trust managed by his children. The organization hired an ethics advisor earlier this year, William Burck, who has since been fired over his legal involvement with Harvard University in a case against the president. The administration is actively negotiating trade deals with a range of countries following the president's imposition and sudden temporary suspension of "reciprocal" tariffs, part of a broader effort to reduce the U.S. trade deficit. In addition to real estate, Trump has profited from various business ventures during and after his time in office, including his stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, and a cryptocurrency meme coin bearing his name. The two efforts have begun to overlap, with Trump Media recently announcing plans to raise funds to purchase Bitcoin. What to Know The Trump Organization, which operates hotels, residential and commercial buildings, and golf courses, owns and operates dozens of properties worldwide, including in North America, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Asia. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva Breaking Ground in Vietnam The Trump Organization has continued to announce new partnerships and construction projects around the world. In a May 21 statement, the company said it had "officially broken ground on the first Trump-branded golf and residential development in Vietnam – Trump International, Hung Yen." It's the first Trump-branded project in Vietnam and will feature "two championship golf courses," villas, a spa, and dining facilities. Eric Trump said the country "represents one of the most dynamic and promising markets in the world today." Dang Thanh Tam, Chairman of Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation, said in the press release: "From the moment we began discussions with The Trump Organization, it was clear we shared a common vision, Hung Yen has the potential to become the premier destination for golf and luxury living in Asia, and with Trump's unmatched global expertise in championship golf developments, we are extremely excited to bring this vision to life." Reuters has reported that in addition, a Trump Tower in Ho Chi Minh City, estimated at around $1 billion, could start next year. Eric Trump visited the country in May. In April, Trump imposed and then paused "reciprocal" tariffs of 46 percent on the country. New Projects in India In early May, the Trump Residences in Gurgaon, India, completely sold out on launch day, "recording an unprecedented ₹3,250 crore in allotments," around $3.8 million, according to a Trump Organization press release. The Trump Towers Delhi-NCR launched in 2018 in Gurugram, India, and has yet to open. Kalpesh Mehta, founder of Tribeca Developers, said in a May 9 press release: "Trump Residences Gurugram is not just a real estate project - it's a landmark moment for India's luxury market." Earlier this year, the Trump Organization announced the launch of "Trump World Center Prune," a 1.6 million square feet commercial real estate venture featuring two glass towers, as well as a "luxury retail boulevard." More Developments in UAE The Trump family is no stranger to the Middle East, with several financial and organizational ties to the region. Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)'s commercial hub, is already home to the Trump International Golf Club. In April, The Trump Organization announced plans for a new addition, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, a luxury high-rise slated to be in the heart of the city. The tower would be the first in the region and marks the fifth time Dar Global and The Trump Organization are partnering. New Development Planned in Qatar Qatar, which has been in the headlines over its role in negotiating peace deals and gifting Trump with a new Air Force One plane, is also expecting a new Trump development. At the end of April, The Trump Organization announced a new $5.5 billion Simaisma development of a luxury golf resort north of Doha. The development will include Trump-branded beachside villas and an 18-hole golf course. Saudi Arabia Expansion The Trump Organization frequently partners with Dar Global—the international arm of Saudi-based luxury developer Dar Al Arkan—on hotel, tower and golf course projects across the Middle East. In December 2024, the Trump Organization issued a press release about a new development in the coastal Saudi city of Jeddah. Ziad El Chaar, CEO of Dar Global, said in the press release that the firm is "delighted to strengthen our ongoing relationship with The Trump Organization and expand our portfolio by delivering premium properties to redefine Saudi Arabia's high-growth real estate market." The Jeddah Tower is estimated to cost $530 million. Two additional Trump Organization projects in the country's capital, Riyadh, are in the works, with Eric Trump telling Reuters in December that they will include at least a tower and be developed in partnership with Dar Global. Oman Construction A Trump International Hotel in Oman is under development and slated for completion by December 2028, according to the project's website. The venture underscores a broader surge in luxury real estate development across the Gulf region. The $500 million project is close to Oman's capital, Muscat, offering a golf course, 140 rooms, a spa, and other facilities. Serbia Hotel Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his firm Affinity Partners signed a deal with the Serbian government to redevelop part of Belgrade. The deal is in partnership with the Trump Organization, but an investigation has been opened into a potential forgery of government documents related to the area's protected status. Open Facilities There are over a dozen already opened and operating Trump Organization facilities, including golf courses across the U.S., in California, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey, North Carolina, and New York. Internationally, the group has golf courses across the United Kingdom, Ireland, Dubai, and Indonesia. Commercially, the company has holdings in major U.S. cities, like the Trump Tower in New York, as well as a handful of others in the city, and one in San Francisco. Residential units are available in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Florida, Nevada, as well as India, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, Indonesia, and Uruguay.
CNBC
a day ago
- Business
- CNBC
$TRUMP and other meme coins won't be protected by SEC, Commissioner Hester Peirce says
LAS VEGAS — Now that the SEC is out of the business of regulating meme coins, investors shouldn't expect any guidance on $TRUMP, according to Hester Peirce, one of the agency's veteran commissioners. The SEC said in February that it does not deem most meme coins securities under U.S. federal law. That took the crypto tokens out of its purview just weeks after President Donald Trump launched his own meme coin and saw it immediately soar in value, lifting his paper net worth by billions of dollars. Peirce told CNBC that it's a similar situation to when nonfungible tokens (NFTs) gained popularity in 2021. They weren't securities but they did rise and fall in value based on investor activity in the market. Peirce said the SEC missed an opportunity to announce publicly that the agency wasn't getting involved. "Here was something where I saw a lot of interest in this out in the world — in meme coins — and it made sense for us to say, 'People, if you are expecting that there's SEC protection around these, you should not expect that,'" Peirce said in an interview at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas. "You can package almost anything into a securities transaction. But generally, it's good for people to know, I should not be looking to the SEC for protection in this area." In other words, buy at your own risk. Since President Trump took office in January, the SEC has been rolling back its enforcement in crypto, taking a more industry-friendly approach to the asset class. It's a controversial strategy, as the president and his family deepen their involvement in crypto, profiting in a way that's led many Democratic lawmakers to declare a clear conflict of interest. The $TRUMP token, 80% of which is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliated entities, has become the centerpiece of Trump's expanding crypto empire. Like most meme coins, the token has no underlying value. But after debuting in January, just ahead of the inauguration, $TRUMP soared to a $15 billion market cap, fueled by President Trump's social media posts declaring, "It's time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!" Within days, the token lost most of its value. Still, the project creators get a fee for every trade. The White House previously told CNBC that Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children, and there are "no conflicts of interest." But Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, is among a growing list of Democratic lawmakers warning that the Trump family's crypto holdings may serve as a backdoor for foreign and corporate interests seeking access to the president. Meanwhile, crypto billionaires once targeted by regulators like the SEC are regaining political and financial influence. On Thursday, the SEC dropped its long-running lawsuit against Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao, bringing to an end one of the most aggressive crypto enforcement actions brought by former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. The agency had accused Binance of misleading investors, commingling customer funds, and allowing wealthy U.S. users to evade restrictions. After pleading guilty to federal money-laundering violations in November 2023, Zhao served just four months in prison and emerged with most of his crypto empire intact. Forbes now estimates his net worth at over $67 billion. Leading up to the dismissal, Zhao had deepened ties to Trump-affiliated networks. As Binance prepared to list USD1, a new stablecoin that funnels profits to Trump-aligned entities, Zhao disclosed that he had applied for a presidential pardon from Trump's Justice Department. Weeks later, Binance received a $2 billion capital injection into USD1 from an Emirati state fund. Peirce rejected the idea the SEC's actions are politically motivated. "We didn't have a clear set of rules," Peirce said, regarding the Binance case. "There were a lot of questions about how this particular activity in the crypto space intersected with our existing securities laws. So we're trying to take a step back, use our regulatory tools to write those rules, and then enforce those rules." That same philosophy guided the SEC's January decision to rescind Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, a controversial directive that had effectively blocked traditional financial institutions from offering crypto custody. "It wasn't even a rule," Peirce said. "It didn't go through the normal process. it was just a pronouncement." She said the policy had the effect of excluding banks and other experienced custodians from participating in the crypto space. "It said that lots of traditional entities that would have done custody for crypto, practically speaking, could not participate," she said.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
One of Trump's Weirdest Obsessions Is Spiraling Out of Control
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. In my 30 years of studying the literature and culture of Louis XIV, I never thought I would see an American president actually model himself on the Sun King, to the point that a recent essay in the New York Times declared the current Oval Office décor a 'gilded rococo hellscape.' Along with the anti-royalist sentiment that used to characterize U.S. politics, I always assumed that most Americans had no real stomach for the hubris and sheer garishness that defined the style and surroundings of France's most famous king. When I've taken students to Versailles, I've noticed that as much as they admire the size and ambitiousness of the château that Louis XIV declared the center of French government, they nonetheless agree with the caustic assessment of the Duke de Saint-Simon, Louis XIV's greatest critic: It's 'a masterpiece of bad taste.' In fact, the White House is the third residence that Trump has tried to make resemble Versailles. Interior designer Angelo Donghia incorporated some gold elements into his initial vision for the penthouse apartment at Trump Tower, and Henry Conversano added much more in a later redesign, with the result being something New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger described in a 2017 talk as a 'pseudo-Versailles in the sky.' But it's less well known that the ghosts of Versailles also haunt Mar-a-Lago, where, when adding a ballroom, Trump ditched the Spanish theme of the original building and chose instead to mimic the Sun King's Hall of Mirrors. A 2007 appraisal of Mar-a-Lago made for the Trump Organization by the firm Callaway and Price described the ballroom as 'in the style of Versailles, in a Louis XIV gold and crystal finish, with huge crystal chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on one wall.' Apparently it's this ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, with its $7 million of gold leaf, that Trump wants now to re-create in the East Wing; the gold cherubs have already been brought up from Florida. No doubt, if it's ever completed, this third Versailles revamp will have a ceiling painting to rival the original by Charles Le Brun depicting Louis XIV's military victories. (Perhaps, instead, 'Donald Trump vanquishes DEI'?) More disturbing, of course, than the president's taste is the administration's view of executive authority. This evokes the absolutist rhetoric of Louis XIV's worst sycophants, which Saint-Simon despised. One can almost hear the echoes of the Versailles courtiers in the Trump Cabinet's paeans to the president's leadership, and Saint-Simon's description of the Sun King's appetite for adulation, found in the writer's secret Mémoires, published after his death, surely suggests our own leader's vulnerability to such praise: 'The self-effacement, the self-abasement, the look of admiration, subjugation, supplication, most of all the look of negation except through him, were the sole means of pleasing him.' (That translation is my own.) Saint-Simon knew that when kings embrace their own flattery, they open themselves to manipulation, and the writer viewed Louis XIV as an illusory absolutist who was in fact controlled by fawning scoundrels. Sort of like if an American president were to be hoodwinked by a Russian dictator offering him a complimentary portrait. The irony is that Donald Trump is not governing like Louis XIV, and we would probably be better off if he did. The Sun King massively invested in science, technology, the arts, and intellectual activity; Trump disdains them all. Louis XIV created the Royal Academy for Sciences, the Royal Academy for Painting and Sculpture, the Royal Academy for Dance; Trump cuts the National Institutes of Health, bullies the Kennedy Center, threatens Big Bird. Louis XIV built roads, paved streets, carved canals, constructed ports; Trump freezes infrastructure spending and may decimate the National Park Service. You don't get Versailles by firing state workers. No, in terms of incompetence, ideology-driven decisionmaking, and a deliberate lack of imagination, the president resembles less Louis XIV and more his great-great-grandson—a man who became king by accident, married a woman from central Europe, and was unable to assume the grandeur of his Versailles forebear. He ruled as Louis XVI, and perhaps his finest decision was supporting the rebellious American colonists against France's oldest enemy, the British. Because of this mediocre king, who clung so desperately to the fantasies of absolutism that he was later overthrown and guillotined by his own people, the American experiment with republican government was able to commence. It's an irony of history that Trump's love affair with Louis XIV may mean that this experiment will ultimately be continued somewhere else—in some land we probably now consider backward and uncivilized, and where a gilded hall of mirrors has less attraction than a system of laws and values against authoritarianism.
