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Donald Trump is trying to make himself immortal — and that appears to be his top priority during his second term. He’s grown bored of the war he started in Iran and doesn’t care about the inflation [ [link removed] ] he vowed to end on day one, but he never gets tired of slapping his name and face on everything he can.
The corruption is massive and ongoing. Palm Beach International Airport is now President Donald J. Trump International [ [link removed] ], a taxpayer-funded rebrand costing at least $5.5 million. It’s the first time in American history a sitting president has had an airport named for him. He also named a class of battleships [ [link removed] ] after himself and announced last year he’d help the Navy design them “because I’m a very aesthetic person.”
He tore down the East Wing of the White House [ [link removed] ], which has stood since 1902, to build a ballroom whose price tag has climbed from $200 to $600 million. [ [link removed] ]The White House still insists it’s funded by private donors, even as taxpayer money has reportedly flowed [ [link removed] ] toward security costs tied to the project.
Trump also had part of the White House lawn bulldozed for a $60 million UFC cage-fighting spectacle [ [link removed] ] for his 80th birthday, replete with fighter jets and fireworks. And he wants a 250-foot triumphal arch [ [link removed] ] between Arlington and the Lincoln Memorial — bigger than the Arc de Triomphe and nearly the height of the Capitol. Trump’s also told us that he wants it to be “the biggest one of all,” [ [link removed] ] which is an interesting window into his fragile male psyche.
His signature [ [link removed] ] is going on U.S. paper currency, upending a 165-year tradition. And the Department of Treasury has already drafted a $250 bill [ [link removed] ] carrying his portrait, contingent on Congress.
His face is all over Washington, just the way he’s dreamed of, on banners draped over buildings for the Department of Justice [ [link removed] ], Department of Labor [ [link removed] ], and Department of the Interior [ [link removed] ]. New passports carry his portrait [ [link removed] ]. Trump’s photo appears on the annual national parks pass [ [link removed] ] alongside George Washington, prompting a lawsuit from a conservation group.
Then there’s the hand-picked board that voted to etch his name on the Kennedy Center. After a federal court shot that down, workers removed Trump’s moniker in the dead of night (and draped a tarp over it to add a fine point to the pettiness). An appeals court has now twice rejected the administration’s demand [ [link removed] ] to put it back, unswayed by the argument that donors would flee without Trump’s name on the marquee. (However, there was a wave of artists and productions canceling [ [link removed] ]their performances — including Hamilton, Issa Rae, and Philip Glass — following Trump’s takeover).
And of course, Trump’s social media feed is filled with self-aggrandizing AI slop [ [link removed] ] from bizarre all-night posting sessions, depicting him as Jesus, the Pope, and most recently, in some sort of weird “time travel epic” with the nation’s first president.
This is the behavior of men who fear erasure, not those who feel secure in their legacy. It’s why statues of Stalin and Saddam Hussein were erected, and it’s why crowds yanked them down the moment they lost their grip on power. Free people don’t want to live under the specter of a dead tyrant’s ego forever.
We’re going to have to devote a fair amount of time to taking Trump’s name off things when he’s gone — but it will be one of the most joyful parts of rebuilding our country.
In the meantime, we need to talk about the unmistakable urgency behind Trump’s obsession with immortality. He’s 80 years old, and there’s ample evidence that his health has deteriorated since his first term — which ended shortly after he was hospitalized with a severe case of COVID [ [link removed] ].
Let’s not forget that his predecessor, Joe Biden, was broomed off the stage two years ago due to overwhelming concerns about his health.
Trump has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency [ [link removed] ] after his ankles showed up visibly swollen in public. His hand has been photographed bruised and caked in makeup on repeated occasions [ [link removed] ] (which the White House insists is due to aspirin and vigorous handshakes). He’s also repeatedly disappeared [ [link removed] ]from public view for prolonged stretches at a time with little official explanation.
Instead we get memos that read like something out of Soviet Russia. His most recent physical listed 14 specialty consultants and a “perfect” cognitive score [ [link removed] ]. That’s something Trump brings up unprompted (and constantly), which seems to be an effort to reassure himself more than his audience. A cardiologist who reviewed his own doctor’s memo publicly noted [ [link removed] ] it claims his ankle swelling “improved” from the year before — despite no swelling being recorded the year before (so either the earlier report was wrong or this one is).
His last report has him at 238 pounds and 6’3”, a BMI of 29.7 [ [link removed] ], just a hair under clinical obesity. (Interestingly, after Eli Lilly reportedly gave an unidentified 79-year-old man compassionate-use access to an experimental obesity drug [ [link removed] ] still in trials, the White House rushed out a denial [ [link removed] ]).
And while there have been stories about Trump’s various ailments or doctor’s visits, there’s not the steady drumbeat of critical coverage that we saw with Biden. (Many of the headlines repeat Trump’s absurd claims that he’s in “perfect” [ [link removed] ]health.)
But as soon as Biden opened his mouth at the June 2024 presidential debate, it was over. Within a week, major media outlets ran 420 negative stories on his age [ [link removed] ]. Within a month, he was out of the race.
Trump is rewarded with far more deferential coverage as president. For years, his volume has been treated as a sign of vigor. That’s continued even as his voice is noticeably weaker now (just listen to his raspy, low-energy delivery at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner [ [link removed] ]) and he had to give a Wisconsin speech sitting down [ [link removed] ] earlier this year.
Trump also seems to have lost his filter, which isn’t exactly uncommon for someone who’s 80. When a president tells a reporter to be “quiet, piggy” [ [link removed] ] on the record, or calls Somali immigrants and a sitting congresswoman “garbage” [ [link removed] ] unprompted, that should be a much bigger story than it has been.
So why doesn’t Trump get the Biden treatment? One reason is that the press covering him answers to corporate owners who need things from his administration. Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit over a [ [link removed] ]60 Minutes [ [link removed] ]edit for $16 million [ [link removed] ], got its Skydance merger through the FCC [ [link removed] ] weeks later, and is now primed to take over Warner Bros. Discovery.
But it goes beyond business interests. Many reporters are eager to follow the rules of the road of access journalism. [ [link removed] ] Just look at all the self-flagellating journalists who showed up Friday night to be subjected to Trump’s abuse and weird anti-trans jokes at the WHCA dinner.
The biggest prize for the beltway press today is Trump’s personal cellphone number [ [link removed] ]. Those doing investigative pieces about his health (or asking too many questions about why he’s suddenly in a hurry to get his name on every building in D.C.) aren’t ever going to get it.
None of that changes the simple fact that Trump is 80 years old. And the actuarial tables don’t care how loud he yells.
So let’s get to the real question underneath all the gaudy gold leaf in Trump’s Temu Oval Office: who is actually making the decisions? How much of a role does Trump play when troops move back into Iran, ICE sweeps through American cities, or the administration threatens “military options” in Mali [ [link removed] ]? We should know if Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, and JD Vance are running the White House machinery around a man who’s too weak to weigh in.
And we deserve to have a media that’s dedicated to uncovering the truth.
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