What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened to destroy the Kennedy Center if he couldn't chisel his name into it.

There is an ongoing lawsuit challenging Trump's decision to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for himself and, now, his attempts to circumvent a judge's ruling preventing him from doing so. Today, the DOJ told a court that if he couldn't do that, he would tear down the entire complex and replace it with an "outdoor amphitheater" like those found at amusement parks.

Trump's theory of the case—as detailed in a legal filing mimicking the odd style of his social media posts—goes like this: if the Kennedy Center board he appointed can't literally chisel his name into buildings thanking him for his leadership, donations will dry up. That will cause the "decrepit" buildings to fall into ruin, necessitating their destruction.

In the real world, there are two problems with this argument. First, the Kennedy Center just underwent major renovations in 2023 and is in pristine condition. This is what its "decrepit" buildings currently look like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, donations to the Center plummeted because Trump fired its original board and began inserting himself into its programming. This isn't speculation: its own internal reports show gifts and ticket sales dropped dramatically after Trump had his name put on the building.

In other words, Trump is threatening in writing to tear down one of the largest and best-appointed performance spaces in the world and replace it with a cheap outdoor auditorium if he's not allowed to put his name on it, even though courts have already ruled he can't under the law that established it.

Neither Trump as president nor the political loyalists he appointed to its board have any legal authority to destroy the center, but that hasn't stopped him in the past. If he carries out the threat, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would be the second American cultural treasure associated with the Kennedys that Trump has demolished since returning to office. 

Why does this matter?

• This is how gangsters in movies from Trump's childhood acted.

• You'd think that Trump would know from experience what substandard building practices and dangerously shoddy construction looks like. 

• There's ego, and then there's throwing a temper tantrum over not being able to put your name on any building you like.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to pass off his ballroom as a "military center." 

Trump ranted on social media today about a panel of DC Court of Appeals judges who blocked the construction of a "Military Center" in Washington, saying in an emotional 488-word post that "Two Obama and Biden Appellate Court Judges just voted against the desperately needed Military Center, required for the National Security of Washington, D.C., and our Country, itself."

The "Military Center" that Trump is referring to is none other than the ballroom he has been fixated on building since he returned to office. Trump demolished the entire East Wing of the White House—lying about his intentions in the process—in an attempt to force the issue, but has been blocked by courts from proceeding with building the ballroom portion of it.

 

 

Renderings of the interior of what Trump is now calling a "Military Center."

Faced with backlash against the destruction of the historic East Wing, and ridicule over his claims that presidents had been desperately pining for a ballroom for over a century, Trump switched tactics and started billing it as a "military top secret ballroom"—that is a direct quote—complete with a bunker hospital and drone ports and various other features theoretically related in some fashion to national security. (Most of these are already present in the White House, which is already fantastically secure.)

But in reality, Trump has not been prevented from constructing the underground portion with all the supposedly urgently needed military facilities. He's only been blocked from building the ballroom portion.
 

Why does this matter?

• What Donald Trump needs for emotional soothing, and what the United States actually needs, are two very different things. 

• Calling a ballroom a "military center" does not transform a ballroom into a military center. 

• A president who cared about hardening the White House against national security threats would have just done that, instead of fixating on chandeliers for a year and a half.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got frustrated with his latest pet project and ordered weeks of work demolished.

Trump's latest renovation obsession—other than destroying the East Wing of the White House for his "military top secret ballroom," the already-just-renovated Kennedy Center, shopping mall-style signage reminding people standing directly outside the Oval Office what it's called, cheap gold-colored plastic appliqué from Home Depot on the White House walls, his proposed "triumphal arch," destroying what was left of the Rose Garden, putting up a UFC cage match arena on the White House lawn for a single night's private entertainment, closing off the last public views of the White House, and his now ten-times-over-budget, two-months-late attempts to replace the dark gray surface of the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool with a dark blue surface—is a new helipad.

 

Trump has been holding court for weeks on the specific aesthetic details he wants to include, enthusiastically telling reporters assembled for Iran War comment about the particularly beautiful color of granite he wanted, and how it would have the presidential seal carved into it. Much of the work had already been completed. But today, construction crews began demolishing weeks of work on Trump's orders, reverting almost all the way to the beginning because Trump was dissatisfied with the particular way it looked against the horizon from his vantage point inside.

The official reason for the destruction of the old landing site is that newer versions of the helicopters used to transport him could theoretically damage the grass. (Trump has been excitedly telling reporters about his plans to replace the grass on White House lawns lately, too, spinning biologically inaccurate stories about how the actual leaves of grass themselves were more than 100 years old.) But off the record, Trump's staff offer other explanations. He has become convinced that it is essential that China's president Xi Jinping be received at the White House on the new pad. And the 80-year-old Trump, who often finds it very difficult to walk short distances in a straight line, or go down ramps or stairs without assistance, would be spared a couple hundred feet of walking in the new location. 
 

Why does this matter?

• Putting up gaudy palaces as a show of the leader's power is what tinpot dictators do. 

• Presidents have more important things to do than worry about what kind of pavers border a helipad. 

• Presidents who decide to worry about that kind of thing anyway should be able to think things through first so that they don't have to do everything twice. 

• Elderly people repetitively obsessing over pet projects and becoming frustrated easily is not a good sign of cognitive health.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He worried a lot about being assassinated.

Trump insisted today that he was "number one on the list" of people Iran's government wanted to kill. Israeli intelligence claims they uncovered just such a plot recently—but those claims are very likely an attempt to influence Trump to back the Netanyahu regime's more aggressive approach.

Trump, who ordered the assassination of most of the Iranian regime's previous leaders, called them "scum" for allegedly contemplating his assassination.

It's not just foreign threats that have Trump worried, though. In addition to the bunker-like "military top-secret ballroom" he still insists he must have, Trump proposed today to cordon off virtually all remaining public views of the White House behind high fences. Those fences would encircle Lafayette Square, long a notable site for both tourists and protestors.

Why does this matter?

• It's a little late once you've decided to ignore why the United States stopped targeting world leaders for assassination to worry about the consequences of your actions. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He announced yet another White House "renovation."

Trump announced today his latest White House building project: a new helipad. The usual helicopter landing zone on the South Lawn is temporarily unavailable due to the stage and bleachers Trump installed for his UFC cage match. (Trump is an investor in UFC and used taxpayer funds to put on the exhibition.) 

 

The only other justification the White House offered for the new helipad, which is expected to cost $13 million, is that modern helicopters might occasionally damage the grass. (Premium sod in the DC metro area costs about $2 per square foot, including delivery and installation.)

Trump also announced that Sikorsky, the manufacturer of the class of helicopters traditionally used for this purpose, was "donating" $5 million to the project. This echoes other "donations" that companies with hundreds of billions of dollars in government contracts have made to other Trump vanity projects, like the "military top secret ballroom" he plans to build on the ruins of the East Wing. 

Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, has billions of dollars in government contracts that Trump has the ability to void or pause.

There are already signs that Trump is showing the same kinds of hyperfocus on this latest White House renovation that he's previously reserved for the renovation of the already freshly-renovated Kennedy Center (now canceled), his ill-fated ballroom and triumphal arch, and the addition of cheap stick-on gold-colored plastic appliqué and mall-style signage to the Oval Office. The Washington Post shared these details:

In the latest example of Trump’s deep involvement in efforts to reshape the White House and its grounds, the president was personally engaged in several aspects of the helipad project, from price negotiations to design minutiae, according to emails exchanged between Clark and the White House in December.

Trump offered input on how far to extend the driveway and requested adding a slight slope to the pavers to facilitate better drainage, according to emailed notes from a Dec. 19 meeting with the president.

“POTUS wants to look at the option of a curved curb for the drive,” the email noted. 

The White House did not offer any clarification on whether Trump's curved curb suggestion was adopted.
 

Why does this matter?

• Obsession with pet projects, to the exclusion of more important things, is not a sign of good cognitive function in the very elderly. 

• It's cheaper for taxpayers if government contractors are bidding for the actual value of their work, not buying goodwill from the president at pennies on the dollar.  
  
  
• POTUS has more important things to worry about than the detailing on the pavers around a helipad. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He made golf a top presidential priority.

Trump spends almost every weekend at one of his private golf resorts. (Formerly an avid player, Trump's time at those resorts is now closed to the press, and it's not clear if his fragile health allows him to play at all.) Today, though, he visited the East Potomac Golf Links in order to promote his plan to give it—as he put it—"the ability to host Major Golf Tournaments, including The U.S. Open, The Ryder Cup, The PGA Championship, and other top PGA Tour events." 

That wouldn't be good news for the locals who actually use the course now, and who would likely be priced out of one of the few affordable DC-area courses if Trump's renovation plans go into effect.

The Trump administration is attempting to seize control of the East Potomac course from the National Links Trust, a nonprofit that had administered them on behalf of the National Parks Service. The reason that Trump gave at the time was that the Trust was in default on its lease, which it disputes. Meanwhile, East Potomac has been in the news for other reasons recently: it's where Trump dumped the construction waste from his demolition of the East Wing of the White House. Heavy metals are leaching into the soil as a result. 

This is the second time in a month that Trump has made golf course renovations a priority. Three weeks ago, he railed at the Democratic governor of Maryland for supposedly holding up improvements to courses at an Air Force base. In reality, the state hadn't done anything to stop the project.

Today's motorcade to the course, which appears to have been hastily arranged, also drove around the site where Trump plans to build what he calls a "triumphal arch." Along with the ballroom he's trying to build on the ruins of the East Wing, and his ongoing attempts to undo the damage he's done to the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the arch is another pet project he's become fixated on since returning to office. He's taken to carrying around models of it to show people.

From his motorcade, Trump may have been able to see the National Mall, where a cheap plywood scale model of the planned arch was on display at his poorly-attended "National State Fair."

Why does this matter?

• None of the things Trump is obsessing over—golf courses, arches, ballrooms, or anything else—are important in any way, much less the sort of thing a president should be spending time and energy on.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got mad that people noticed he'd made a mistake that covered eight acres of downtown Washington.

 

The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial is attracting more attention than usual, as curious sightseers take in its algae-laden, bright green water. And as of today, Trump—who has spent much of the day ranting conspiracy theories about vandals—is deploying the National Guard and police to harass them.

Took this video of a guy getting detained and a citation for putting his hand in the water an hour ago.

[image or embed]

— amanda moore 🐢 (@noturtlesoup17.bsky.social) June 20, 2026 at 5:47 PM

The reason Trump is incensed to the point of trying to have tourists put in prison for (allegedly) even touching the water is, of course, that he just finished spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on a slapdash, no-bid "renovation" and bragging about the beautiful "American flag blue" that the pool would be when he was done. 

When work began in May, Trump boasted that he'd put his personal "pool guys" on it, apparently on the theory that hotel swimming pools and the multi-acre granite surface of the reflecting pool were interchangeable. The White House quickly backed off of that story, given the obvious corruption of handing a no-bid contract to a Trump crony who, as it turned out, had no experience whatsoever with projects of this nature. 

It was reported earlier this week that another contractor, also owned a Trump donor and Mar-a-Lago patron, got a separate no-bid contract to install water purification systems. The owner, John J. Cafaro, is no stranger to government corruption: he was previously convicted of bribing then-Rep. James Traficant of Ohio. Amusingly, the name of that company is "Greenwater Services."

Some degree of algae was always common in the pool: it is a large, shallow, warm body of stagnant water. Algae will always grow under those conditions. But Trump's hasty and technically incompetent repairs appear to have super-charged this particular bloom. The textured sprayed-on coating, which experts are pointing out is exactly the wrong sealant to have used for a large flat surface, is an ideal growth medium for algae. And filling the whole pool at once with phosphate-rich DC tap water gave the algae plenty of nutrients.

The concentrated hydrogen peroxide that armies of workers started adding this week hasn't done much to kill the algae, although it has given the pool a an appearance reminiscent of a Mark Rothko or Ellsworth Kelly painting.

It may, however, be the reason that the coating is now peeling up so quickly around the edges, with large chunks of it floating loose. (It is touching, or seeming to touch, these bits of debris that Trump is now having people arrested for.)

A dark blue piece of the liner floats in murky green water within reach of the edge of the Reflecting Pool.

Trump, who reacts badly to embarrassment, has grown increasingly shrill in his posts about the pool throughout the day. By 4 PM, he was crowing about the arrests for the "serious crimes" related to "the Destruction of National Monuments," and asking "who would do such a thing? He continued posting through the evening about nonexistent "vandalism" and imaginary "250-foot" gashes in the lining, before finally admitting that the pool would have to be drained once again to fix the lining.

Trump destroyed the entire East Wing of the White House last summer, after pardoning the insurrectionist supporters who broke windows and doors to invade the Capitol Buidling and, among other things, smear their own shit all over the floor.

 

Why does this matter?

• It is not a federal crime to notice that Donald Trump screwed something up. 

• It is not a crime to touch the water at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, although it's not the most sanitary thing to do.

• The underlying reason in this case might be comically stupid, but arresting people for embarrassing the leader is what fascist regimes do. 

• You don't spend all day telling lies this obvious unless you're delusional, or you think the people listening are incredibly stupid. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened a federal judge over his "military top-secret ballroom."

Today, Trump once again took to social media to rant about the legal obstacles he's facing in building what he has called a "military top-secret ballroom." Initially, Trump's fixation on the "ballroom" was simply for the event hosting space he was imagining. He claimed that presidents for "150 years" (so, presumably, back to the Ulysses S. Grant administration) had yearned for "a large event space on the White House complex."

But the idea that Teddy Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower lay awake at night dreaming of ballrooms they couldn't build didn't play well with the public, and neither did the ballroom itself, or Trump's obsession with it. Gradually, he introduced the "military" aspect to his frequent diatribes about it, recasting what he still calls a ballroom as some kind of space-age fortress with a bunker, secure communications facilities, and a hospital. (The White House already has all of these things except a hospital, which might actually be useful for a President whose "annual physicals" now occur every few months and on short notice.)

Today's emotionally overwrought post was about the "DronePort" that he claims the current litigation against the ballroom is holding up. He specifically called out the Republican-appointed judge overseeing the case, Richard Leon, and said that Leon would "be held responsible for the Death and Destruction caused to our Country."

Drawing attention to people by name in this way, in the knowledge that someone among perhaps millions of followers will try to threaten or hurt them, is called stochastic terrorism. Trump has a great deal of experience with it, including against Republicans like Judge Leon.

Trump didn't say what "Death and Destruction" he envisioned happening because the White House lacked an "ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people." But he posted it from the clubhouse of one of his Virginia golf resorts, which lacks any of the White House's defensive fortifications or a drone port.

Why does this matter?

• Laws and judicial proceedings don't cease to exist just because Donald Trump gets upset by them. 

• Trying to incite mobs to violence against political enemies is what authoritarians do.  

• Adding paranoia to a preexisting obsession doesn't make it any better.
  
  
   

 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threw a tantrum about not getting a billion dollars for the "free" ballroom he wants to build.

Trump has tried to justify building his "military top-secret ballroom" by claiming that it is being paid for by private donations. Even setting aside the obvious corruption implications of letting companies with business before the White House buy the president's goodwill by paying for his pet project, Trump's claim isn't true: the "gifts" that tech companies, crypto scammers, lobbyists, and tobacco companies are making are tax-deductible. There's no difference between a dollar the Treasury spends and one it never receives—taxpayers are footing the bill either way.

But it's also false because Trump has demanded $1 billion in appropriations for the ballroom project, directly from taxpayers. Specifically, he's demanded that Senate Republicans try to force that funding through the budget reconciliation process, where Democrats could not mount a filibuster. Budget reconciliation is a complex parliamentary procedure and in order to be included in it, an appropriation must meet a number of legal standards. The person who adjudicates that process, under the Senate's rules, is the Senate Parliamentarian.

Over the weekend, the parliamentarian (whose name is Elizabeth MacDonough) ruled that the ballroom budget line did not qualify. Trump responded today by ranting about how she was appointed by President Obama in 2012 and demanding that she be fired.

Trump is confused: the president doesn't appoint the Senate Parliamentarian. But in any event, Senate Republicans, who rely on the consistent process that MacDonough oversees as much as Democrats, don't seem eager to take Trump up on his demand. 

In spite of the fact that the reason he was angry was that MacDonough's ruling means he won't be able to get a billion-dollar appropriation of public funds for his ballroom, Trump then immediately repeated his claim that the building was his personal "gift" that wouldn't cost taxpayers anything. "All this is being paid for by myself," Trump said, although he himself isn't contributing anything at all, unless he decides to pay his taxes this year.

Why does this matter?

• No amount of repetition makes the phrase "military top-secret ballroom" less embarrassing for a president to say. 

• The rest of the United States government doesn't need Donald Trump's permission to do its job.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to lie his way out of his latest vanity project boondoggle.

Since returning to office, Trump has been obsessed with what amount to redecorating projects. Some, like his covering the White House in gold-colored plastic gewgaws and mall signage, are merely odd. Some, like his utter destruction of the historic East Wing of the White House, have been catastrophic. And some, like his fixation on a "militarily top secret ballroom"—that is an exact quote—run the gamut from absurd to pathetic to flagrantly corrupt at the same time.

His latest preoccupation, announced just a few weeks ago, is with covering the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool in a coating akin to a backyard pool's liner. Work has already begun, thanks to an emergency no-bid contract that Trump rushed through to try to have it completed in time for 4th of July celebrations. In pitching the project to an increasingly angry electorate, Trump made a number of claims. Specifically, he said that

• the project would cost $1.3 million
• it would be done by "his pool guys," contractors who had installed pools at his resort properties and were experts in this kind of work
• it would take "two weeks" to finish
• it would save hundreds of millions of dollars over the cost of replacing the leaky plumbing underneath the pool

As recent reporting makes clear, none of this is true. Costs are already ballooning to over $13 million and rising, and the work is nowhere near complete after more than "two weeks" of work. It may not even be ready by July, which was the whole justification for the "emergency" no-bid contract. 

 

What little work has been done is visibly shoddy. The blue color Trump demanded is uneven and splotchy, and the surface is bubbling and tearing, indicating it's not adhering to the granite and won't be waterproof. In fact, it's likely that the "repairs" will do more damage than they fix, which is the basis for a lawsuit filed this morning to halt the work. That means that the leaky pipes underneath will still need to be fixed at some point in the future, hopefully by a contractor with some experience on jobs like this, which the awardee of the no-bid contract—Atlantic Industrial Coatings—admits it doesn't have.  

Trump also completely changed his story on his "pool guys" today, and now says he'd never worked with them, blaming the Interior Department for hiring them. But his new claim still contradicts the story the White House is telling: Trump now says he'd never heard of them, but Trump's spokespeople are saying he ordering them hired based on what he'd supposedly heard about them "as a builder." 

The conflicting stories means it's not clear how the company obtained the lucrative contract, which is one reason that no-bid contracts are usually illegal.

It wasn't the only awkward moment for Trump today where his vanity projects are concerned. In spite of Trump's constant claims that his "ballroom" will not cost public money, his party is already preparing supplemental budget requests of more than a billion dollars in taxpayer funds. Asked by a reporter about the ever-increasing costs today, a visibly emotional Trump snapped at her, calling her a "dumb person" and insisting that the project (which may never be built) was still "under budget."

Why does this matter?

• Becoming obsessed with strange ideas or pet projects is not a sign of good cognitive health in the elderly. 

• Even if Trump knew what he were doing, this would be a terrible use of a president's time and energy. 

• Just because he's not fooling anyone doesn't mean it's okay for the president to lie to the American people. 

• Donald Trump's aesthetic sensibilities being upset is not an "emergency" requiring the waste of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He went all in on the concept of a "Militarily Top Secret Ballroom."

 

Last night, Trump's appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner was interrupted when an armed man tried to rush through the outer security perimeter. He was immediately detained. Trump and other White House officials were moved from the ballroom where the event was being held, and then subsequently returned to the White House after the suspect had been arrested.

It's important to note that the suspect, Cole Allen, never got anywhere near Trump, or even within two floors of him. The Hilton hotel where the event was held was open to the public, and Allen was brought down as he was trying to run through the first of several security perimeters. Other people, including Trump's security detail, were in danger, but Trump was not.

But what Trump seems to have taken away from this is that he is desperately endangered, and that he must be given carte blanche to construct a "Militarily Top Secret Ballroom." (Unbelievably, that is a direct quote.) This is, of course, the gaudy and at times physically impossible building that Trump has been obsessed with building since he returned to office, and for which he destroyed the historic East Wing of the White House before he had permission to build it.

What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough! While beautiful, it has every highest level security feature there is plus, there are no rooms sitting on top for unsecured people to pour in, and is inside the gates of the most secure building in the World, The White House. The ridiculous Ballroom lawsuit, brought by a woman walking her dog, who has absolutely No Standing to bring such a suit, must be dropped, immediately. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with with its construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule!!!

Trump even had DOJ lawyers demand today that the National Trust for Historic Preservation drop its lawsuit against the construction of the "ballroom," claiming with a straight face that the absence of a ballroom on the White House grounds is endangering Trump's life. 

 

 

Trump's claim that presidents have been clamoring for this for 150 years is, obviously, a lie. In reality, neither President Ulysses S. Grant nor any subsequent president had ever mentioned anything like the combination defense bunker/ballroom Trump is imagining. That includes the three living former presidents, none of whom supported the "ballroom" idea or Trump's destruction of the historic East Wing. It also includes several presidents who oversaw major renovations to the White House (both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and even Trump during his first term) but never gave any thought to a "militarily top secret ballroom."

All presidents in recent decades have experienced "threats" like this that were dealt with by their perimeter security. Would-be assailants occasionally try to climb the outer fence around the White House, or fire at the (bulletproof) windows of the building from the street.

Trump has faced "threats" of similar magnitude, where intruders were stopped long before getting anywhere near him, at both Mar-a-Lago and his private golf courses, where he has spent about a third of his presidency. He has not indicated that he'll stop going to those places.

Why does this matter? 

• If Trump feels the need to hide in a bunker for the rest of his presidency, the White House already has one.  

• If there were a good reason to destroy a third of the White House and build a ballroom, then Trump wouldn't need to ignore the law and make up excuses to do it anyway.

• It is just so unbelievably embarrassing for the United States to have its president talking about a "top secret Ballroom" as though that made any sense at all.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He ranted about his ballroom at length.

Last year, Trump destroyed the East Wing of the White House, without permission from Congress. He did this with as much secrecy as is possible, hastily knocking it down behind construction barriers after lying to the American public that he was only making minor alterations to it. He had claimed that the ballroom he wanted to build "wouldn't interfere" with the East Wing immediately before having it destroyed.

Since then, despite an obsessive interest in the proposed ballroom's construction, Trump has been held up by legal challenges. A federal judge ruled earlier this month in favor of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the agency established by law to protect historical buildings, and ordered a halt to construction of the ballroom. Today, the same judge clarified that an exception he had made for the construction of national security facilities under the ballroom was not a blank check to construct the whole thing anyway.

This outraged Trump to the point that he spent the whole afternoon posting four lengthy rants to his boutique social media website, railing against the Republican-appointed Richard Leon as a "Trump Hating Judge" and making absurd claims about the planned ballroom. Some of the most outrageous:

• Trump asserted, as he often does, that the ballroom is "free" because it is being paid for by corporate sponsors. Even if this weren't a bribe—and Trump has made clear that he regards contributions to the construction fund as the cost of doing business with his White House—it's still not true that taxpayers won't end up paying for it. The "donations" that corporations are making are tax-deductible and secret, so money comes out of the budget either way. Trump also recently gave a Luxembourg steel company a special break on tariff rates in exchange for a "donation" of $34 million worth of steel, reducing revenue and undermining the American steel industry at the same time. 

• Trump also said, and this is a direct quote, that "The Ballroom is deeply important to our National Security" because it will contain "Top Secret Military Installations." Setting aside the question of how secret they are if Trump is tweeting about them, the judge's order doesn't prevent Trump from building an underground bunker if that's what he wants to do. It simply prevents him from violating the law by building an entire new structure on the grounds of the People's House without authorization from the people's representatives in Congress. 

• Trump insisted that nobody had legal standing to stop him. In reality, of course, Trump is not the whole government, and doesn't rule by fiat, especially where Congress has given its own agencies jurisdiction. 

• Finally, Trump claimed that the ballroom was "not a joke to me, or the people of America." It's completely clear that Trump is deadly serious about the ballroom. As for the American people, polls show they overwhelmingly think it's a joke, and a pretty bad one.

The posts appeared at 2:45, 3:47, 4:05, and 6:41. Trump then reposted all of them again about a half an hour after the last one. They come to a grand total of 782 words. 

Why does this matter?

• A president ranting that "The Ballroom is deeply important to our National Security" is deeply embarrassing. 

• Obsessive fixation on grandiose schemes is not a sign of good mental health. 

• Even by Trump standards, this is bizarre, and sad.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He talked about drapes while his administration tried to decide why it was in Iran and what its goals are.

On a day that saw three F-15s shot down, apparently by friendly fire, a US embassy set on fire by a drone attack, and three more American servicemembers confirmed dead, Trump himself was either unwilling or unable to say much about the Iran conflict himself. He briefly mentioned the increased death toll at an unrelated White House event, but used the opportunity to segue into a discussion of the golden drapes concealing the site of his future ballroom.

Trump gestures at the drapes during a White House Medal of Honor ceremony today, which he proceeded to talk about at length.

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts when Saturday's attack began, did offer what may be the first credible explanation for the timing of the attack. In so many words, Rubio said that Trump's hand was forced by Israel.

RUBIO: The second question I’ve been asked is: Why now?  Well, there’s two reasons why now.  The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States.  The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders.  It was automatic, and in fact it beared to be true because, in fact, the – within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already been activated to launch.  In fact, those had already been pre-positioned.

The third [sic] is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.  And so the President made the very wise decision.  We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act. 

This is a shocking admission, not least because it completely undercuts the only other rationale that the Trump administration has been willing to lean on—namely, that Iran was once again imminently ready to construct nuclear weapons. That never made much sense, especially because Trump's ludicrous claims that bombing a few facilities last summer had utterly destroyed that capacity are still up on the White House website—

 

—and Iran cannot have a nuclear program that is both "obliterated" and minutes from completion at the same time.

But more importantly, Rubio is all but admitting that the United States put decisions about its military forces entirely in the hands of a foreign government. Not as part of a military coalition where the governments involved collaborate on a shared strategy (like NATO), not because of battlefield necessity where an isolated unit from one country is temporarily integrated into an allied country's forces, but the entire military decision-making command subordinated to a country with very different long-term goals. 

In that light, the relationship between Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump takes on real significance. Like Trump, Netanyahu has spent much of his political career one step ahead of the courts for corruption in office, and more recently, for crimes against humanity. Like Trump, he is shielded from effective prosecution only so long as he holds office. Netanyahu has stoked conflict between Israel and other regional powers specifically because that makes him harder to oust democratically. Unfortunately for Trump's personal fortunes, the same trick isn't working for him at the moment: nothing about the last three days has made Americans warm to the prospect of a war with Iran that not even Trump is pretending can be brought to a quick and clean end.

To the question of whether this will become a war, Rubio made one other point on Trump's behalf today. Congress is expected to vote this week on a war powers resolution. The outcome of that vote is unclear, but Rubio launched his own preemptive attack on Congress's constitutionally guaranteed power to declare (or refuse to delcare) war, saying that "no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional."

This is false—in terms of how both courts and presidential administrations have seen it. Individual presidents have debated whether it applied to specific actions in specific contexts. But the basic premise that the American people's representatives in Congress hold the final say on what the executive branch may order the military to do is not something that any president—not even President Nixon, over whose veto the War Powers Act was passed specifically to constrain—has ever challenged.

Or, rather, not before Donald Trump.
 

Why does this matter?

• Talking about drapes when asked about dead American servicemembers is more or less the same as fiddling while Rome burns. 

• A president—let alone an entire presidential administration—needs to know why it is starting a war before it does, and needs to be willing to tell the American people. 

• The United States military is not the personal plaything of the president or any other world leader.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said he wouldn't completely destroy another physical monument to the Kennedy legacy, for whatever that's worth.

An enormous amount of Trump's time and waning energy during his second term has been spent on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which isn't even part of the executive branch. He's spent whole days touring it, replaced its board with loyalists, shoehorned himself into an emcee gig for its annual awards ceremony, floated the idea of giving the nation's highest award for artistic achievement to a long-dead baseball player, dictated its programming, sampled custom marble arm-rests for its chairs, used it for a screening of a vanity project for his wife that doubles as a bribe, and slapped his own name up on the sign for it. (The name hasn't actually changed, no matter what he says.)

Predictably, both artists and patrons are having none of it. Last week, composer Philip Glass became the latest artist in a long list to cancel a show, and ticket sales have fallen off a cliff since Trump started trying to make it part of his personal brand. 

In a fairly obvious attempt to stave off further embarrassments like that, Trump abruptly announced over the weekend that the Kennedy Center would be closed for two years for "renovations," something he decided to do without informing anyone who works there. Their surprise at learning about his plans from social media might have come from the fact that the Kennedy Center just finished a $250 million renovation, which now looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the structure that Trump thinks is "broken, tired and dilapidated" and "kind of dangerous."

In describing his plans for it today, Trump promised to rip the structure down to its structural steel, but said that he wouldn't completely demolish the building itself.

Quite possibly he won't. In fact, quite possibly he'll never get around to doing the "renovations" either. But then, that is exactly the same lie that he told about the now-demolished East Wing of the White House. 

Why does this matter?

• Two years of music, dance, art, education, and children's programming is worth a lot more than Donald Trump's ego. 

• Anyone who thinks the Kennedy Center isn't fancy enough is either delusional or just has incredibly bad taste.  

• This is mad-king shit.

What did Donald Trump do today?

Bribes.

Trump made news on at least three different fronts related to bribery today, both of himself and others.

The first was the announcement that the cost of his pet "ballroom" project, for which he tore down the East Wing of the White House before he had permission to build anything in its place, had gone up yet again. The figure he has been quoting has steadily risen from $200 million to $250 to $300 and, as of today, to $400 million. But the increase in cost is actually a positive for Trump, whose career in the private sector as a "builder" was more of a cautionary tale than a success story. Trump has been hitting up companies and individuals for "donations" with the implicit threat that he will grant or withhold favors based on their contributions. 

 

The second story was the announcement that another billionaire has announced he will be "donating" money to help fund the so-called "Trump accounts" created by this year's budget bill. Legally required to have Trump's name attached to it, the accounts are essentially a watered-down version of the existing 529 Savings Plan, and one that would actually financially hurt many low-income families to use in spite of it coming with "free" money. Several ultra-wealthy firms and individuals have "volunteered" seed money for the project, not just to buy favor with Trump, but to get a piece of the lucrative business of administering the accounts. 

Finally, in a televised address tonight, Trump made a clumsy attempt at a bribe of his own, announcing a $1,776 bonus for active-duty members of the military. The amount, chosen for its symbolic value rather than what members of the military might actually need, is roughly equivalent to an extra week of pay for a staff sergeant in the Army. A bonus check like that would go a small way toward making up for Trump calling for the smallest military pay raise in four years in his most recent budget.

Trump, a Vietnam-era draft dodger, has always been unpopular with servicemembers, who often lean Republican in their voting patterns. The reaction on military subreddits like r/navy, r/veteransbenefits, and r/militaryfinance to the bonus announcement was, to say the least, not kind. Many posters openly doubted that the money would ever come, while others pointed out that an actual raise for the lower ranks would do more good than a purely symbolic number being given to high-ranking officers. Even posters who were glad to be getting the money understood it as a bribe.

And more rank-and-file servicemembers than Trump is probably comfortable with were aware that Trump was lying about tariff revenue paying for it, or even his legal authority to spend money that had been appropriated for other purposes.
 

Why does this matter?

• No matter how routine it becomes, corruption is still corruption. 

• A president who truly valued "warriors" would do much, much more than try to buy their gratitude with a small one-time check.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got very excited about his new top priority, a ceremonial arch.

Last month, shortly after Trump had destroyed the East Wing of the White House, his spokesperson Karolina Leavitt said that building a ballroom on its ruins was Trump's "main priority." The fact that she said this during what became the longest government shutdown in American history, among other more pressing problems, didn't go unnoticed. (Leavitt later insisted she hadn't meant what she said.)

Today, Trump reveled in what may be his new favorite hobby: building a ceremonial arch like Paris's Arc de Triomphe, except—to hear him tell it—bigger and better.  To that end, he said today he'd assigned his top domestic policy advisor the task of building such an arch by the 250th anniversary of independence next year. In fact, Trump said he'd told that advisor, Vince Haley, that it was his top priority: "That's your primary thing."

Building a ceremonial arch is not really "policy." As one columnist put it:

Americans struggling with increased costs due to tariffs imposed by Trump on imported goods – or those whose health insurance premiums are set to double or triple in the coming weeks – might disagree with the president’s claim that the construction of an Arc de Triomphe knockoff should be the main focus of his chief domestic policy adviser. 

There is some historical context Trump doesn't seem to be aware of. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806, when he was already ruling as a dictator and had had about as much success as a military conqueror as he ever would. But his declining military fortunes and decaying empire made it impossible to continue construction, and he was long deposed and dead before it was finally completed in 1836. When it was done, it had none of the memorials to Napoleon's personal glory that he had intended.

Trump, who has also spent a great deal of his second term enthusiastically "redecorating" the surviving parts of the White House with gold-colored appliqués and signs labeling the Oval Office, has been carrying around actual models of his planned arch for months now.

Why does this matter?

• Quite literally nobody other than Donald Trump ever thought this was necessary or a good use of resources.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He lashed out with name-calling at yet another female reporter asking about his ballroom.

Recently, a reporter asked a question about his pet ballroom project. We know this not because of any story that arose from his answer, but because this morning Trump posted a furious, insult-laden tirade about it to his private microblogging service:

Caitlin Collin’s of Fake News CNN, always Stupid and Nasty, asked me why the new Ballroom was costing more money than originally thought one year ago. I said because it is going to be double the size, and the quality of finishes and interiors has been brought to the highest level. Also, the column SPAN has been substantially increased for purposes of viewing. It is actually under budget and ahead of schedule, as my jobs always are. It’s just much bigger and more beautiful than originally planned. Interestingly, and seldom reported, there are no taxpayer dollars involved. It is being fully paid for by private donations. FAKE NEWS CNN, and the guy who runs the whole corrupt operation that owns it, is one of the worst in the business. Their ratings are so low that they’re not even counted or relevant anymore. MAGA!!! 

None of this is true, even the spelling of Kaitlan Collins' name, but a few things jump out. Trump's career as a builder is legendary for all the wrong reasons; even illegally hiring undocumented immigrants as laborers and refusing to pay his contractors hasn't kept his projects from busting their budgets—when they opened at all.

More importantly, the budget for Trump's pet ballroom hasn't gone up from "one year ago" because it was only announced in July of this year. Its budget has gone up from a supposed $200 million to a new moving target of $300 million since then. In part that's because Trump fired the first architect he hired for not being willing to inflate the building to an even more preposterous size than the initial plans called for.

Trump is also wrong about his claim that the private donations paying for the construction are underreported. In fact, precisely because companies and individuals looking to curry favor with Trump are using their donations to buy influence with him, it's been a major story.  

 

The ballroom project, which resulted in the total destruction of the East Wing of the People's House just days after Trump promised it would only be minimally impacted, is hideously unpopular with Americans. 

Why does this matter?

• It's not exactly news at this point that Trump can't stand even the mildest challenge from a woman, but it's still bad. 

• Bribery isn't a good alternative to public funding. 

• The destruction of the East Wing wasn't worth letting Donald Trump try to pretend to be a success in the building trades for once.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He pardoned two turkeys and, as it turns out, an unknown number of real human criminals.

Today, Trump took part in the White House tradition, "pardoning" two turkeys from the upcoming Thanksgiving feast. He used the occasion to make jokes at the expense of people like Gov. J.B. Pritzker he regards as political threats, but also victims of human rights abuses and the refugees he illegally deported to a notorious torture prison in El Salvador. 

Bizarrely, but not entirely unexpectedly, he also took a swing at Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Standing in what used to be the Rose Garden, which the former First Lady designed, he insisted that attendees would be standing in mud if he hadn't paved it over (and if he'd chosen to hold an outdoor event in the rain in a literal garden). 

"Joking" aside, there was other news on the pardon front today. As a rule, Trump has issued pardons to three kinds of people: those who can pay him for it, those who have committed the exact crimes he himself is known or suspected to have committed, and those whose crimes were done on his behalf. Earlier this month, Trump issued what was supposed to be a mostly ceremonial pardon for people in that last category: the loyalists who presented themselves—falsely—as the legitimate electors from states Trump claimed to have won. 

But the language of the pardon now appears to be so broad that it may cover everyone who committed any crime related to elections in 2020—and the first criminal defendant in such a case is using it in court. That defendant, Matthew Laiss, voted for Trump twice in two different states. (He was caught because, contrary to Trump's wild claims about mail-in voting, it is very easy to determine when someone votes twice in two different jurisdictions.)

In other words, in pardoning members of his inner circle who committed a very specific kind of crime in an attempt to keep Trump in power in spite of having lost the election—a kind of "voter fraud" he strongly approves of—he may have also unintentionally pardoned an unknown number of other people who committed the rare but more garden-variety form of illegal voting. That kind of voter fraud is extremely rare, accounting for less than one vote in a million, according to one study, but Trump routinely tries to get people to believe that the 2020 election he lost involved millions of such illegal ballots.

This is the second time this month alone that Trump has gotten confused over what he was doing with pardons. That may explain why he has been trying to claim that it was his predecessor, President Joe Biden, who didn't know what pardons he was signing. 

Why does this matter?

• Needing to believe that other people have the cognitive issues you yourself are struggling with is called projection, and it's not a sign of good mental health. 

• This isn't the sort of thing that would ever happen in a competently run administration. 

• Giving your supporters a license to commit crimes is what dictators do.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He held a millionaire-themed party while the clock ran out on food and health care benefits for millions of Americans.

Trump threw a party tonight at Mar-a-Lago. The theme was the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's cynical look at wealth, hedonism, and class privilege during the economic boom of the early 1920s. According to attendees, the event also had another theme: "A Little Party Never Hurt Anybody."

That may be true, but at the same time, Trump's administration reached a number of other milestones today that will mean Americans who can't afford Mar-a-Lago's million-dollar dues won't have much to celebrate. It is now one full month since funding for the government lapsed over Trump's refusal to fund the Affordable Care Act. This means that as of November 1st, Americans who depend on that program for their insurance—the vast majority of whom are in states that voted for Trump—will see premiums skyrocket, often by tens of thousands of dollars a year.

 

 

The shutdown is forcing hundreds of thousands of government workers to go without pay, even if they haven't been laid off. Most of them have now missed two consecutive pay periods, which has depressed local economies and stressed food banks. 

 

Making matters worse is that appropriations for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) also expired at the start of October, and while there is a contingency fund that would keep it in operation, Trump has refused to do so even though he is legally required to. His administration reaffirmed that today, defying a federal judge's orders to make sure that the program millions of Americans rely on didn't grind to a sudden halt.

 

One thing Trump has found time and money for, though, is his ongoing decorating project at the White House. Today he posted twenty-five pictures of a single bathroom he'd ordered redone in "black and white statuary marble."

 

 

 

The bathroom in question is off the Lincoln Bedroom, which means that the 41 million Americans who rely on SNAP will never get to see it in person. That part of the residence isn't normally part of White House tours, which are on hold anyway as the government has shut down and the East Wing—the only part of the People's House that was ever really open to the public—has been destroyed.

Why does this matter?

• Americans who didn't inherit hundreds of millions of dollars don't deserve this kind of contempt from a president who did. 

• There are much, much more important things for Donald Trump to be worrying about now than picking new toilets for a redecorating project.  
  
  
• It's okay if Trump hasn't read The Great Gatsby, but that doesn't make choosing it as his party's theme any less stupid.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He fired the people who'd have the next say on the ballroom he demolished the East Wing for.

Today, Trump fired the entire membership of the Commission on Fine Arts, an advisory body made up of architects, civil engineers, and urban planners. Its role is to advise the federal government on the design and construction of buildings and monuments. It would have already met to discuss Trump's destruction of the East Wing of the White House and the ballroom that will supposedly be replacing it, but the federal government shutdown canceled its planned October 1 meeting. Now, it seems likely it will not meet at all.

On one level, this is hardly unusual: Trump has purged dozens of advisory boards since returning to office, on subjects ranging from national defense and homeland security to the arts and humanities. But his unlawful destruction of the East Wing—home of the last remaining traces of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's imprint on the White House, after Trump bulldozed the Rose Garden this summer—has been deeply unpopular, and he may be trying to avoid further scrutiny by people who actually know something about design and building.

The Commission on Fine Arts would also have had a say in Trump's plans to hastily build a "triumphal arch" somewhere in Washington in time for the 250th anniversary celebrations next year. Next to the ballroom, which his own press secretary has called his "main priority," building such an arch appears to be Trump's favorite new diversion. He's taken to carrying models of proposed designs around with him and showing them off to reporters.

There's a certain comic irony here: Trump is finally, and for the first time in his life, finding some success in the building trades—and all it took was an infinite pool of other people's money and the ability to completely ignore the law and zoning regulations. But as many people have noticed, there's a sinister subtext to go along with the comic one: wannabe authoritarians rarely renovate the presidential mansion with the next occupant in mind. Trump has spent most of the last thirty years (including a great deal of his time in office) living at Mar-a-Lago, a property with ballrooms very much like the ones he says he plans to build on the ruins of the East Wing.

It's something that's clearly been on Trump's mind too: yesterday, in the same conversation where he once again marveled at his ability to pass a "very hard" dementia screening test, he teased the idea of staying in office after his current term ends. (Of course, he already sells "TRUMP 2028" campaign merchandise, so "tease" might be the wrong word.)

Why does this matter?

• Presidents with good ideas for White House additions wouldn't be—and historically haven't been—afraid to run them past people who know what they're doing.