Hindsight

As the world goes to hell, Trump is living his best life

The president has no permanent alliances, only personal financial interests.

May 9, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 6:00 a.m. EDT

It was, President Donald Trump teased, “a very, very big announcement to make, like, as big as it gets … one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain subject.”

When Trump actually announced his trade deal with Britain Thursday from the Oval Office, it wasn’t quite as sensational as advertised: It turned out to be just the outline of a deal, and “final details are being written up in the coming weeks.” The British ambassador said it was “just the end of the beginning,” and a reporter for Britain’s Sky News asked whether Trump was “overstating the reach and significance of this deal.”

Still, Trump did use the occasion to highlight what for him is the most important subject: his own business interests. “We have a lot of investment over there,” he said, speaking not for the United States but for the Trump Organization and its golf properties. “We have Turnberry, Aberdeen. We have, as you know, Doonbeg in Ireland, right on the ocean. They’re all on the ocean. I only have interest if they’re on the ocean. And we have, we have good investments over there, beautiful.” He even recounted how Sean Connery helped him win zoning approval for a golf course.

So this is why Britain went to the top of the trade-deal waiting list? It was just the latest reminder, as if we needed one, that Trump has no permanent alliances, only personal financial interests.

As you’ve no doubt heard, the president has spent a good deal of time in recent days deliberating in public about just how many dolls he will allow American children to have. First, he told his Cabinet that, because of his tariffs, “children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls.” On “Meet the Press,” he revised this upward: “They can have three dolls or four dolls.” Aboard Air Force One, Trump offered a more flexible range for what a girl would be permitted: “She could be very happy with two or three or four or five.” (Trump has shown no such wavering on the number of pencils children will be allowed to have: “They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.” Not four, and not six.)

Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, adding to this bit of Soviet-style planning, addressed himself to “that young girl” who might be concerned about the new doll-rationing policies. “You and your family, thanks to President Trump, can now be confident again that you will have a better life than your parents,” he explained to whichever 10-year-old girl was watching Fox News at that moment.

But Trump and his family are subjecting themselves to no such sacrifice. In between the administration’s explication of the Two Doll Policy, Trump enjoyed two extravagant excesses: He spoke at a dinner for his super PAC, MAGA Inc., for which donors paid $1.5 million apiece for access to Trump and to his artificial intelligence and crypto “czar,” David Sacks. And he posted yet another promotion for a “Most Exclusive Once in Lifetime Invitation” — the chance to “Join President Donald J. Trump at his Private, Members-Only Club in Washington, D.C. for Dinner!” on May 22, awarded to the 220 people who make the largest investments in Trump’s crypto meme coin.

This access-selling scheme is part of a larger crypto racket that has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of Trump and his family and friends, some of it from foreign businesses and governments. Billions more in paper earnings may soon be headed into Trump’s accounts. It appears to be corruption, plain and simple — he’s directly using the presidency to further enrich himself — with the added insult that tens of thousands of novice investors who are presumably his supporters have lost their shirts buying the Trump coins.

While American kids surrender their dolls, Trump is charging $20 million a pop for people to have dinner with him. One international trucking logistics firm is spending as much as that on Trump coins (it’s issuing debt to buy the crypto), because it believes that “the addition of the Official Trump tokens” will help it “advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the US.” At the same time, an investment firm in the United Arab Emirates announced that it is making a $2 billion investment using Trump’s stablecoins, another crypto scheme the president’s family is running.

And Trump’s allies in Congress are aiming to pass the crypto-friendly Genius Act, which would make it even easier for Trump to engage in his get-richer-quick schemes. The Trump family’s crypto grifting is on top of a new hotel in Dubai, a tower in Saudi Arabia, a golf course in Qatar and a club in Washington. When the New York Times’s Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany asked Donald Trump Jr. about the schemes, the president’s eldest son said it was “laughable” that he would “cease doing what I’ve been doing for over 25 years to earn a living and provide for my five children.”

While other American kids face a pencil quota, Don Jr. must provide for his children with billions from the Persian Gulf — which Trump reportedly plans to rename the “Arabian Gulf” at the request of his sponsors.

Trump and his family aren’t the only ones exploiting his presidency for personal profit. As the Post has reported, government messages from the State Department and U.S. embassies have pushed foreign countries to approve Starlink, the satellite business of the world’s wealthiest man, Trump sidekick Elon Musk, who also gets to pressure leaders in private meetings.

Even in his first term, Trump was an I-me-mine kind of guy, often arranging the presidency for his benefit. But what’s striking about the second term is that he has increased both the threshold for the pain he is willing to inflict on others and the amount of his devotion to his own pleasure. The world may be going to hell, but don’t worry: The president is doing well!

This week brought alarming hostilities between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed powers. Russia hasn’t budged in peace talks despite the concessions from Ukraine that Trump forced; even Vice President JD Vance now says Russia is “asking for too much.” Israel has stepped up its demolition of Gaza, which faces another humanitarian crisis. Imports at the Port of Los Angeles are anticipated to drop 35 percent this week from a year ago, as carriers cancel sailings because of the trade war with China. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, freshly branded a “FOOL” by Trump, warns that Trump’s tariffs, if they continue, “are likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment.”

But Trump seems unconcerned about Americans suffering. Asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker if it would be okay to have a recession in the short term, he replied: “Look, yeah. Everything’s okay.” After campaigning on a vow to solve the housing crisis, he proposed in his new budget to cut federal housing programs by about 43 percent. He also called for slashing the National Park Service, some education funds, energy assistance and medical research, among other things. His $500 million proposed cut to the FBI is so severe his own FBI director, Kash Patel, objects. The European Union has launched a campaign to exploit the brain drain of scientists caused by Trump’s attacks on universities and government research.

Reports of cruelty to migrants are multiplying, including alleged deportations of mothers of breastfeeding infants and children undergoing cancer treatments. Federal authorities fanned out to several Washington restaurants this week in search of illegal immigrants, spreading intimidation but reportedly producing no arrests. His attacks on the federal civilian workforce (about 80 percent of which is outside the Washington area) have only just begun to be felt. And millions of Americans could be affected by Musk’s DOGE as it rushes to build a centralized database of records of U.S. citizens and residents, as The Post reported, potentially without adequate privacy protections.

Yet Trump is living his best life, directing the federal government to pursue whatever catches his fancy at the moment. His and the White House’s social media accounts both posted an AI image of him dressed as the pope, drawing an angry reaction from the Catholic Church as cardinals began their conclave. He announced that he was directing the government to “REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” as a prison 62 years after it closed — an idea that came to him hours after the PBS affiliate in the Mar-a-Lago area aired the 1979 film, “Escape From Alcatraz,” as the Hollywood Reporter noted. Trump announced that he would impose a 100 percent tariff on movies filmed overseas — inspired by an idea presented to him at Mar-a-Lago by his actor friend Jon Voight.

He said this week that he was “hereby declaring a National Holiday” on Nov. 11 to mark the World War I armistice of 1918, and another on May 8 to mark the “victory day” for World War II. He seemed unaware that we already have a holiday on Nov. 11, Veterans Day, which was called Armistice Day before the name change during the Eisenhower administration, and that while V-E Day was May 8, the actual end of World War II — V-J Day — came a few months later. In any event, the confused Trump said “we’re going to have a major celebration of each day,” adding that Americans would not get time off work for these days because “we have too many celebrations already.”

Trump acknowledged this week that he is using trade policy as his personal plaything. “I could announce 50 to 100 deals right now because, you know, I’m the shopkeeper and I keep the store. … And I can just set those terms and they can go shopping, or they don’t have to go shopping, because everybody wants to shop here,” he reasoned.

In other Trump-centric activity, the administration, which has been thwarted in court in its attempt to shut down Voice of America, announced that the government-funded outlet would broadcast One America News, a right-wing outlet — thereby treating the world to Trump hagiography. Likewise, after ousting Democratic board members from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum before their terms ended, Trump has named replacements who are predominantly his friends and allies, including a pair of Mar-a-Lago members (one of them a “Real Housewives” star) and a media personality who called Democrats “Jew-haters and lowlifes.” To his task force preparing for soccer’s 2026 World Cup, he named Rudy Giuliani’s son as executive director. Now his Justice Department is investigating New York Attorney General Letitia James, a transparent bid for revenge against one of those who brought legal cases against Trump.

Trump’s usual emphasis on himself becomes more jarring as global problems proliferate. As the world grappled with the India-Pakistan crisis Wednesday morning, Trump went on Truth Social and renewed his complaints about CBS News’s editing of an election interview with Kamala Harris. Asked by reporters about the India-Pakistan hostilities, Trump answered that “I get along with both.”

Meeting Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, in the Oval Office, Trump urged him to “see the new and improved Oval Office as it becomes more and more beautiful with love. We handle it with great love and 24-karat gold.” Trump, calling himself “a very artistic person,” further explained to the Canadian that North American maps would look better if the border with Canada were erased.

On “Meet the Press,” Trump explained that, when it comes to economic news, “the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy.” He called Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) a “low-IQ person,” the latest Black lawmaker to receive that label. He celebrated Cinco de Mayo by reposting his “wonderful” post from 2016 attesting that Trump Tower has the best taco bowls.

And what is Congress doing to return the commander in chief’s attention to matters of state? Well, on Thursday the House passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) attempting to codify Trump’s decree that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America.

The courts, at least, have tried to keep Trump on the straight and narrow. A Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the administration to facilitate the return of a second migrant who was deported in violation of a legal settlement. Another federal judge warned the administration that its alleged plans to ship immigrants to Libya would violate his existing order. A third judge ruled that Trump’s order punishing a law firm for working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was unconstitutional, saying “no American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit.”

Trump’s response: that judges “must” let him do as he wishes, or else “our Country, as we know it, is finished!” He said he wouldn’t be “held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges.” Asked by Welker whether he has a responsibility to uphold the Constitution, Trump replied “I don’t know” before punting the question to his “brilliant lawyers.”

But maybe he could learn the right answer. After all, he changes his mind all the time. In March, he threatened that the Houthis “will be completely annihilated” by American bombing; this week, he said the two sides had reached a ceasefire, and he said of the Houthis, “there’s a lot of bravery there.” Last month, his administration cut off certain education funds for Maine as part of a dispute over transgender athletes; now the administration has abandoned its punitive effort. Trump has been changing personnel at a rapid clip: this week, he ousted the acting FEMA chief (a day after the official dared to say the agency shouldn’t be eliminated) and withdrew his nominees to be U.S. attorney for D.C. (replacement: Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro) and surgeon general (she misrepresented where she got her MD).

Could Trump likewise reverse himself and decide to take seriously his oath to the Constitution? Of course he could. It’s just a matter of how much $TRUMP crypto the judges are willing to buy.