Transcript:
My mother-in-law called tonight to complain about Donald Trump and his ‘let them eat cake’ moment: The destruction of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a ballroom so that he and his ridiculously wealthy friends can cavort while so many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and 22 .4 million of them will soon face very steep increases in their health insurance premiums.
This new ballroom is not paid for by the taxpayers, but by donors. We don’t know who those donors are, which just adds to the monumental corruption of this act— the secret influence peddling that this reflects. Who knows what they’re getting in return for contributing to the costs of the ballroom.
The main thing that Trump wanted to avoid was exactly what we saw this week. He didn’t want any pictures taken of the demolition because he knows on some level that this symbolizes his presidency. The image of the destruction of the East Wing, which he promised not to do, is in perfect alignment with the themes of his presidency, which are the demolition and vandalism of the government and of the rule of law.
So decades from now, there will be three dominant images of the Trump era: Trump coming down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his candidacy, the horrifying images of January 6, and the symbolic destruction of part of the White House, which belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump.
