How
much will Americans pay for Trump's riches?
Will they tire of Trump’s excess as they struggle to
meet basic needs while he shrugs and says, “Let them eat crypto?”
By S.
E. Cupp
Oct
23, 2025, 6:00am CDT
The facade of the East Wing of the White House is
demolished on Oct. 22, part of President Donald Trump’s plan to build a
ballroom reportedly costing $250 million. He has said private donors will pay
for it.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty
The
White House is full of so much rich history and tradition — it helps tell the
story of America itself. And it’s an incredibly impressive and intimidating
venue for facilitating international diplomacy.
As Michael Douglas’
President Andrew Shepherd says in “The American President,” “The White House is
the single greatest home court advantage in the modern world.”
President Trump
understands the value of first impressions, even (and especially) if they’re
not painting an accurate picture. He may have put gold leaf in his NYC
bathrooms, but he also inflated the value of his properties and his own net
worth for years. He famously pretended to be his
own spokesman to appear more established. He’s sold everything from luxury ties
to luxury home goods, most of which were made cheaply in China.
For Trump, you can
forget if it’s genuine or not — it just has to look rich.
So no one should be
surprised that on his second go-round at president, he decided the White House
— the people’s house — needed the Trump touch, too. Not known for subtlety,
Trump’s already made noticeable changes,
painting over fixtures in the Oval Office a garish gold, and festooning the
place with gold vases, trophies and coasters.
And now he’s building a
new ballroom, much like the one he uses at Mar-a-Lago to host his corporate and
political pals.
The
new ballroom will cost $250 million, and Trump insists that it’s being entirely
funded by private donors. With his penchant for misleading about his own
expenditures, I guess we’ll just have to take his word for it.
But as America watches
aghast that the White House East Wing is being torn up, Trump is reveling in
the destruction … er, construction. At a Tuesday press conference, he moaned,
“You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back. You hear
that sound? Oh, that’s music to my ears. I love that sound. Other people don’t
like it. When I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.”
It’s not hard to see
why. Trump’s used the office of the presidency to rake in the cash, boosting
his personal net worth by a record $3 billion just since 2024.
According to Forbes: “No president
has used his position of power to profit as immensely as Trump.” He’s primarily
done that with a crypto venture he announced last September named World Liberty
Financial, and a memecoin, all of which he helped make possible by rolling back
regulations and signing favorable legislation. How convenient.
But that’s not all.
He’s announced a new
“Arc de Trump,” a structure that will be built across from the Lincoln Memorial
to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary. We don’t know how much it will
cost or who is paying for it.
He’s refurbishing a $400
million Qatari plane he was
“gifted” in May, which is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $1 billion.
Trump says he’s donating the plane to his presidential library foundation.
A New York Times report
this week alleged Trump is asking the Justice Department to pay him $230
million personally, over its investigations into him, an idea he later
defended.
This is all happening
while the government is shut down, and costing taxpayers $15 billion a week.
And it’s happening as Trump just handed Argentina a $20 billion bailout while
American farmers suffer under his dumb trade war. And it’s happening while 22
U.S. states are either in a recession or on the
brink. Trump doesn’t care.
Of course, fleecing the
American people isn’t new for him.
Last year, the House
Oversight Committee revealed Trump was
charging more than a thousand bucks a night on the taxpayers’ credit card so
that Secret Service agents protecting his family could stay at Trump hotels.
After lying about the
results of the 2020 election, he fleeced his own supporters,
encouraging donations to help “Stop the Steal,” donations which he then used to
pay his own legal bills and Melania’s stylist.
From golden sneakers to
Trump Bibles, he’ll get his hands on Americans’ money any way he can.
But Trump is stuck in
the 1980s — both in terms of his gaudy interior design aesthetic and his
assumption of where the American economy is. He may learn in the midterms that
greed isn’t as good as it was for Gordon Gekko when his voters can’t afford gas or
groceries.
Or maybe he’s stuck in
the 1780s, his faux-French “Arc de Trump” a fond homage to the court of Louis
XVI and Marie Antoinette, whose lavish spending while their people starved
prompted an actual revolution.
Will Americans tire of
Trump’s excess as they struggle to meet basic needs while he shrugs and says,
“Let them eat crypto?”
S.E. Cupp is the host of
“S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
