By Dan Rather
Donald Trump is currently on what can only be described as a boondoggle: a European vacation and sales trip at his own golf resort, paid for by us, American taxpayers.
He is in Scotland for a “working visit,” according to the White House. Other than a few meetings with European leaders, who are traveling to Trump rather than vice versa, he is playing golf and shilling for his new course, named for his Scottish-born mother. That’s right: His mother was an immigrant. You can’t pay for the kind of press coverage he’ll get at the ribbon cutting for the Mary Anne MacLeod Golf Course.
This junket is just the latest example of Trump’s enriching himself at taxpayer expense. The cost of a foreign trip, even one only five days long, is in the tens of millions. Plus, the hundreds of people who travel with him — his entourage, the Secret Service, and the White House press corps — will all be staying and paying for rooms at his pricey luxury resort.
With all the noise produced by the sitting president to distract us from his side hustles and dishonesty, it is important to keep calling out the duplicity.
The golfing trip to Scotland is just a more expensive example of something Trump does most weekends. The website DidTrumpGolfToday.com tracks, you guessed it, how often the president hits the links. So far this term, he has played one of his courses in Florida or New Jersey 45 times, a 37% increase from his first term. The website estimates the cost of these trips is at least $63 million.
A compliant Congress, an indifferent press corps, and a generous number of “yes” men and women have emboldened the president, making the Trump 2.0 con game considerably worse than the first time around. There are so many examples to choose from. Here are some of the most egregious.
The Qatari “gift”
Remember that $400 million “gift” from Qatar to Trump in the form of a 747 jumbo jet? Trump’s vanity project and the not-so-soon-to-be Air Force One is currently sitting in a hangar in San Antonio awaiting extensive renovations that could cost as much as $1 billion.
This blatant attempt by the Qataris to curry favor with Trump is obvious to just about everyone, but no one, it seems, is doing anything to stop it. Congress just rubber-stamped the “transfer” of $934 million from an over-budget, behind-schedule U.S. nuclear program to a heretofore unreported “unnamed classified project.” According to The New York Times, that money will be used to completely overhaul the decades-old jet, including security and military upgrades, as well as a Trump-approved facelift, complete with gold adornments.
The renovations could take up to two years, meaning it would function as Air Force One for as little as a year.
Humanitarian inaction
Trump’s notable disregard for people in crisis was on full display at press availabilities in Scotland. Trump was asked about the starving children in Gaza, calling the situation “terrible.” No kidding. He then complained he wasn’t sufficiently thanked for sending a small aid package.
Later, when pressed about Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks that no one is starving in Gaza, Trump said, “I don’t know. I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry.”
At the same time, Trump slashed funding for UNICEF, the United Nations agency that provides humanitarian aid for at-risk children around the world. The U.S. funding, which accounts for 20% of UNICEF’s budget, is far less than the cost of turning a Qatari jet into Air Force One.
The ‘deal’ with the European Union
On Monday the administration announced it had finally reached a deal with the European Union on tariffs, trumpeting it as a big win for the United States.
Tariffs on most goods from the E.U., our biggest trading partner, will jump from 1.2% to 15%, driving prices up. We will shoulder most of that cost, while the money generated will go to the U.S. Treasury. It is, plain and simple, a new tax on U.S. consumers.
Justin Wolfers, an economist and professor at the University of Michigan, pointed out the irony of the situation on X. “American President raises taxes on Americans across a wide range of goods; European Union President announces tax cuts for Europeans.”
The biggest E.U. exports are pharmaceuticals, industrial machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers, cars, and car parts. It would take years and billions of dollars to build the factories and infrastructure to supplant the European producers. Meanwhile, French cheese and Italian wine will cost a lot more.
Epstein’s partner in crime
It seems Trump can’t get out from under the Jeffrey Epstein story, and therefore neither can we. Over the weekend, Todd Blanche, Trump’s assistant attorney general — and former personal defense lawyer — met with Ghislaine Maxwell, who procured underage girls for Epstein.
Maxwell is currently in the fifth year of a 20-year sentence for sexual exploitation and abuse of children. The two-day interview is part of Trump’s effort to quell displeasure among the MAGA faithful by gathering and releasing any credible evidence about others who were involved with Epstein.
While the interview may have been meant to tamp down the chatter, it is having the opposite effect. Trump could pardon Maxwell in exchange for testimony. While that testimony would be suspicious at best — she is a known perjurer — Maxwell would have all the credibility of Al Capone.
Trump claims the idea of a pardon hasn’t come up. “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it,” Trump said in Scotland on Monday.
Trump lies to the American people with such frequency it is difficult to keep up. And so do the people who speak for him. “It’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt recently said with a straight face. “This White House holds ourselves to the highest of ethical standards.”
Trump has made hundreds of millions of dollars selling everything from meme coins and cryptocurrency to bibles and sneakers, not to mention pardons and access. While he is profiteering from the presidency, he is cheapening the office, while much of the country — including most of the press — sits back and watches it happen.
It is imperative to keep reminding ourselves, and others, of the many transactions and transgressions from a president who has doubled his net worth in less than a year, to an estimated $7 billion and counting.
