- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
Trump can’t focus long enough, even on his $400 million passion project
In October, Donald Trump traumatized all true patriots by tearing down the East Wing of the White House. The move, he claims, will clear the way for a ballroom for holding large events that are typically held in tents on the South Lawn. A debate immediately arose online over whether or not the next Democratic president should tear down the ballroom or keep it, albeit with the necessary extensive renovations to remove all the tackiness Trump brings to any project.
Two months later, it increasingly seems that such discussion was a wasted effort, as the chance this ballroom will actually be built is rapidly disappearing. Perhaps it could have if Trump had delegated the management of the project to someone competent, but that’s not what he did. Instead, the famously lazy and disorganized president decided to blow off his actual governance duties in favor of micromanaging a construction project he is incapable of handling. Finishing the ballroom in the next three years would be difficult for anyone, but it’s quickly becoming clear it will be nearly impossible for the famed real estate tycoon to pull it off.
The whole thing is a too-perfect symbol of Trump’s second administration: They are very good at breaking things, but they don’t know how to create anything of value.
Uhh idk about this article, it meanders randomly around various failings of the president (sure) but building a big room in 3 years with a ton of money available seems totally doable
It’s doable if you’re not constantly changing the plans. The issue appears to be that he keeps changing things about it. Every plan or rendering they’ve released is different and it keeps getting bigger with each iteration.
AI isn’t good at making minor changes to an image
My brain. I read “bathroom” instead of “ballroom.”
Trump can’t focus long enough, even on his $400 million passion project
Didn’t it start out under $100 million?
It started at $200M and as “not affecting the existing structure” and will end as a $900M donation to the Trump presidential library, which will also not be built.
Oh, wow, really? Now I do wonder where all that money will end up…? Hmmm, I bet he will just return it and definitely not pocket it! Oh, no.
Plot twist: the Trump Presidential library is built in place of the East Wing
That actually seems completely plausible
Plot twist 2: The library will only be a small shelf because Trump is effectively illiterate and he will pocket the rest of the money.
In a just world the library would be filled with the Epstein files and all of his executive orders with explanations about how they were illegal attempts to legislate from the oval office.
Instead, it probably going to be scrap books of under age girls he raped, a bible (for photo ops while holding it upside down), and Mein Kampf for anti-virtue signaling.
The fact that Trump just randomly tore down part of the White House still makes me laugh.
True patriot.
We need to start calling this Trump’s Folly everywhere and for now on.
Wait until you see the shit stains on the constitution.
They are very good at breaking things, but they don’t know how to create anything of value.
Yet they’ll still come out richer than ever, what a world.
Yes, yes. That’s a terrible shame, I’m sure.
I think there’s a pretty good argument laid out in this video that the ballroom is a literal cover for a bunkered database
Can’t watch the video now, but why build it next to the white house instead of literally anywhere else?
Executive privilege, potentially.
I bet they can’t get any contractor to work on that, because the Administration has already stiffed the demolition crew and nobody wants to touch a job they will never get paid for.
But have you considered building it for exposure?
For real? They didn’t pay the demo crew? Or os this speculation?
I bet the “I bet” at the start of the statement was meant to indicate that it’s not for real, just an example of one of the myriad things Trump has done over the years that might lead a contractor to be wary of taking on a job for him and which would be good rationale to avoid being next in line to be burned.
I’ll take your bet
I bet they can’t get any contractor to work on that, because the Administration has already stiffed the demolition crew
I wanted this to be true… https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-east-wing-demolition-congress/?collection=471833 Unfortunately it’s not
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t stiffed them, just that particular story about congress blocking funds is fake.
Wow, when did snopes become an absolutely adfucked shithole. Besides, as far as I can tell that article is focused on Congress stopping the payments being false, not whether or not they’ve actually been paid, which wasn’t clear to me.
I wonder what a demolition crew does if you don’t pay them. Other tradies will typically just rip out their work, but it’s not like a demo crew can easily rebuild something they tore down.
A demo crew could keep working by mistake.
Maybe that’s Trump’s big plan: don’t pay the demolition crew and hope that they build a massive ballroom in protest.
LMAO
Thats silly. Its a lot of extra work, and a crime.
They would file a lien on the property.
…so they can get paid when the property is sold? Just when do you think that’s going to happen?
Thats how it works, yes.
So the property that hasn’t been sold in 200 years. That’s the one you want to put a lien on? Would you like a shit sandwich to go with it so you at least get something?
I’m a big fan of “you paid us to remove your shit, you didn’t pay us, here’s your shit/equivalent of your shit back”
Most contractors put a lien on your house.
That asshole hasnt paid any bills in decades, i cant believe anyone is still dumb enough to accept a job for this conman.
Well you see there are still plenty construction contractors that happen to be republican.
And the very fact they are republicans means they never think anything is real or possible until they personally experience it first hand.
There is a bottomless barrel of idiots for trump to screw over because he hasn’t personally fucked them all…yet
You need to remember just how stupid some of his base is. There are pickme’s out there who will 100% jump at the chance and think surely Trump won’t stiff them.
I’m actually amazed how he keeps finding new suckers after decades of doing it in the private sector and almost 10 years of doing it as President. The only ones that really came out ahead are the criminals that bought their pardons. Everyone else gets screwed one way or another.
Same here. Even back in 2010 and 2011 when I first started to look him up I was surprised that anyone could have trusted him or taken him seriously once the 90s rolled around. He should have been remembered as that conman from the 80s who is barely hanging onto life financially today.
He was always that shadey “businessman”, but that stupid reality show really put him back in the spotlight.
Maggie Mae Fish did a cool retrospective on how terrible The Apprentice was.
It’s why he has “the worst fucking lawyers”
A lot of the work is shoddy. The businesses doing the work have some kind of quid pro quo. Financing is involved, so the real bag holders will be lenders pitched a job they can never collect on.
There’s a lot of different ways to pass the bill around in the modern economy, such that landing a $300M job on-paper can be leveraged to cheat and swindle people down the line.
10 years doing it as President?
Not implying he was President during the Biden years. I guess I meant as a prominent politician.
He announced his intentions in 2015, so it’s a cromulent statement.
Not to mention his whining overshadowed anything Biden had going on administratively. This, it’s been about about that idiot for a decade…and is still ongoing.
The average American is very dumb. He has a large lot of rubes to stiff.
And half are even dumber than the average (assuming assumed assumptions).
The secret service still has to let them in though. That might narrow the field quite a bit. At least if the secret service hasn’t been gutted and filled with lackeys that is.
So many faces offering themselves to the leopards
On a personal level sure, but this isn’t a job for a random one man operation.
At the top level you need a business and as much as business leaders love Trump (who doesn’t love a useful idiot) they would never risk their bottom line for it.
All that and the fact that you would likely need a whole bunch of credentials to be building parts of the white house, or at least you likely used to.
He’ll just hire a Russian firm. No security issues there.
Actually on second thought I’m an idiot.
If he actually builds that stupid ballroom he would have to pay for it. Much easier to just take the donations and leave a hole in the ground.
How could I not see such an obvious grift.
Not to mention, did we ever find out what happened to all the stuff that had been in the East Wing?
Hell, I heard that the Resolute Desk had been spotted at Mar A Lago…
Presumably the current requirements begin with Russian language skills
Also, you try finding a construction crew on the east coast he hasn’t personally stiffed already
Maybe he can order the army corps of engineers to do it.
Or the insert red state name here National Guard.
Instructions unclear they installed a dam
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deleted by creator
We can’t have elections in the middle of a ballroom renovation!!
They are very good at breaking things, but they don’t know how to create anything of value.
Typical fascists. It’s all grandiose and talk. If one reads the history of Nazi and fascist policies, they tend to wing it. Fascism is a reaction and antithesis to rationalism. In that sense, why would they have a plan at all? Okay, maybe with Heritage Foundation, they have a plan, but overall it is about regression which ultimately doesn’t make sense apart from being an emotional reaction to caring about lgbt, migrants and social welfare.
100% this. All they can do is break. Never create.
All they can create is ways to attach their names to things others have built.
Weaponized pre School sandcastle destroyer mindset
Trump has a track record of not paying people. Even court records to prove it. Blows my mind the demo team agreed to do this and now they’re not getting paid. No money, no worky
Is it grift? I wonder if it’s grift. Nah, he’s too upstanding of a guy to do that…
Lupus?
Oh… now it’s $400 million?
$400 million SO FAR!
Maybe the ext elected will finish it at record savings, under a billion.
Nah he’ll build it, he said he finds this kind of work soothing. The world can burn down and he’ll be happy as a clam in his old real estate ways and gold trim. This is what he wants to be remembered for, fancy buildings.















