Trump attracts Marie Antoinette comparisons as he leans into gilded trappings of presidency…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump had one thing urgent to address while flying assist to Washington from his Mar-a-Lago property on a novel Sunday.

It wasn’t the Iran conflict, nor the partial govt shutdown over Division of Establish of delivery Security funding. He used to be centered on a large field of a special kind, hoisting artist renderings of the $400 million White Residence ballroom he’s building, entire with hand-carved “one of the most sensible” Corinthian columns.

“I’m so busy that I don’t hang time to beget that. I’m combating wars and other things,” Trump said sooner than extensively detailing plans for “the final note ballroom any place on the earth.”

His divided consideration has become a Democratic level of assault and a diagram for some Republicans who pain he’s now not spending ample time on points that voters care most about forward of November’s midterm races.

The inequity used to be on full show conceal Thursday, when, as Trump flew to Las Vegas to focus on tax cuts for American citizens earning options, his administration used to be pushing forward with one more of his splashy initiatives: Plans to construct a 250-foot Triumphal Arch advance the Lincoln Memorial replete with a Girl Liberty-address statue and a pair of golden eagles.

The president’s skill to focus on to the considerations of working other folks has continuously looked incongruous alongside with his biography as a billionaire real property developer. Yet his populist insurance policies and emphasis on the financial system for the length of his 2024 campaign helped catapult him assist to the White Residence.

Republican strategist Rick Tyler notorious that, when Trump first ran for president in 2016, his wealth used to be a promoting level.

“Whereas other other folks, address Mitt Romney, performed down how effectively off he used to be, Trump used to be giving free helicopter rides on the Iowa Assert Honest,” Tyler said. “Other folks cherished it.”

Tranquil, Trump’s preoccupation with one of the most vital gilded trappings of the presidency, as more American citizens pain about bills, has drawn accusations that he’s a up to date-day Marie Antoinette.

“‘Combating wars’ and surging gasoline prices, but Trump has time to brag about his billionaire backed ballroom,” Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, replied on X to Trump’s Air Force One presentation.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a doable 2028 presidential hopeful, has been more notify in comparing Trump to the final queen sooner than the French Revolution, who has attain to embody extravagant opulence — even posting an AI-generated image of Trump’s face on her body on social media.

“TRUMP ‘MARIE ANTOINETTE’ SAYS, ‘NO HEALTH CARE FOR YOU PEASANTS, BUT A BALLROOM FOR THE QUEEN!’” Newsom wrote in October 2025, at the beginning of ultimate fall’s 43-day govt shutdown.

White Residence says Trump’s success benefits all American citizens

Asked about opponents invoking Marie Antoinette, White Residence spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump “goes to switch down in history as essentially the most successful and consequential president in our lifetime.”

“His successes on behalf of the American other folks would per chance be imprinted upon the fabric of The US and could well well doubtless be felt by one one more White Residence that comes after him,” Ingle said in a press free up.

The president confronted identical opinions for the length of his first term. But honest presently he’s been unabashed about accusations he’s disconnected from American citizens’ worries about excessive prices, which can lunge away Republicans with an uphill fight to assist assist watch over of Congress.

Republicans were loath to hunt info from Trump, despite the proven truth that particularly there has been shrimp criticism of a federal own’s ruling that work on the mission must conclude till it has congressional approval. The GOP-controlled Residence and Senate also haven’t prioritized legislation to switch the ballroom mission forward.

“I’m now not important into architecture,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said final fall.

About two-thirds of American citizens said Trump is “out of contact” with the considerations of most other folks within the United States presently, primarily primarily based on an ABC Recordsdata/Washington Submit/Ipsos poll from February, despite the proven truth that the identical percentage said the identical referring to the Democratic Birthday celebration.

Presidents are in most cases removed from voters, separated by layers of security and surrounded by adoring subordinates. In her book “Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Be successful All but again,” Elaine Kamarck argues that presidents ranking too centered on their very hang political narratives reasonably than the general public’s considerations. Yet, in phrases of Trump, “All of these items is frankly outlandish to him.”

She pointed to the ballroom as effectively as Trump’s other White Residence renovations, rapidly adding his signature to paper forex and renaming the Kennedy Center after himself.

“It’s a reflection, I deem, of his hang background as a businessman and any person that made his fortune promoting his name,” said Kamarck, who worked in Bill Clinton’s White Residence.

Whereas Trump focuses on the ballroom and other Washington initiatives, some public work initiatives in other parts of the country hang languished.

Joe Meyer, the former mayor of Covington, Kentucky, spent years pushing for extreme improvements to the Brent Spence Bridge connecting his metropolis with Cincinnati, a mission listed as a top federal priority relationship assist to Trump’s first administration.

Federal funds for improvements had been authorized beneath President Joe Biden nonetheless held up by a Trump-ordered evaluate. Work is now indirectly set of abode to open later this yr, despite the proven truth that delays will seemingly restrict create choices and sluggish the mission, Meyer said.

“The ballroom is Washington interior-baseball,” Meyer said. “The bridge is factual a damage. It’s frustration that we’ve been going thru eternally.”

A $100 tip and a golden tractor

Trumpeting fresh tax deductions for options, Trump staged ordering McDonald’s to the Oval Establish of enterprise — which he has embellished with gold flourishes — and tipped the grandmother making the provision $100. When she described broad medical bills from her husband’s most cancers therapies, Trump said she could well well peaceable bring him to an upcoming UFC wrestle on the White Residence lawn.

When a entire bunch of farmers had been invited to the White Residence for an agricultural policy speech, they stood on the South Lawn beside a tractor that had been painted gold. It drizzled, nonetheless Trump stayed dry, addressing them from a lined 2nd-ground balcony.

“You don’t suggestions rain,” the president suggested the farmers beneath.

He then flew to Miami for a conference of Saudi traders who, the president notorious, had been too effectively off to be impressed by U.S. households scrounging to place up $5,000.

“I do know they’re having a explore address, ‘What the hell is $5,000?’” Trump joked. “Their shoes cost them greater than $5,000.”

When asked in February, meanwhile, for his message to teenagers desirous to aquire a dwelling, Trump replied: “Establish a shrimp longer. Wait a shrimp longer.”

Contributors of the Cabinet hang also fed the perception that Trump’s promised “ Golden Age ” could well well now not be arriving for everyone. Properly being Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. suggested American citizens to aquire liver reasonably than red meat.

“While you lunge and aquire a steak, it’s peaceable slightly costly. But when you aquire the less dear cuts, it’s broad meat. And it is very, very affordable. Or liver, or, you know, all these seemingly selections,” he suggested podcast host Joe Rogan.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said other folks could well well peaceable hang the funds for meals consisting of “a section of rooster, a section of broccoli, corn tortilla and one thing more.”

Texas-primarily primarily based Republican advisor Brendan Steinhauser said he thinks that Trump “can more or less ranking away with” building a ballroom attributable to voters hang attain to hunt info from that from him as a brash dealmaker and businessman.

But Steinhauser said he worries that dramatic increases in gasoline prices and a potentially weakening financial system could well well resonate with voters. Forward of the midterms, Steinhauser said, Democrats could well well ranking facets “trying to compose it more about Trump and his oligarch chums.”

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Linked Press writers Linley Sanders in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this document.