Trump reveals what his presidency is all about
The ‘Trump Kennedy Center’ honors
“Tell me what you think of my ‘Master of Ceremony’ abilities, President Donald Trump said Tuesday in a Truth Social post touting the “Trump Kennedy Center Honors”.
“If really good, would you like me to leave the Presidency in order to make ‘hosting’ a full time job?”
In that one sentence, Trump pulled back the curtain on what his presidency is all about: a performance.
You don’t have to tune in to the Kennedy Center show to assess Trump’s hosting abilities — you’ve been watching a show directed by, and starring, the former “Apprentice” boss since he took the oath of office on January 20.
Take the Trump administration’s shipment of deported Venezuelans to a notorious El Salvador prison, as documented by the 60 Minutes segment blocked at the last minute by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. (Fortunately, the decision to hold the segment didn’t prevent it from airing in Canada, and thus it’s available to viewers online.)
What was the whole El Salvador excursion about? A performance designed to deter other migrants and burnish Trump’s image as a tough guy, as the 60 Minutes report demonstrates.
The 252 prisoners were portrayed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Levitt as “monsters, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, sexual assaulters, predators, who have no right to be in this country.” According to Human Rights Watch, ICE’s records show only 3% of the 252 prisoners had been sentenced for a violent or potentially violent crime. Nearly half of them had no criminal history.
Several prisoners told 60 Minutes they were subjected to torture at the enormous prison. After four months of abuse, they were shipped home to Venezuela in a deal that freed 10 Americans held in that country.
Or take the U.S. missile strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela: a way of showing how decisive and powerful the president is, without a high likelihood of any other country striking back.
Or take the new “Trump-class” battleships announced by the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Dating back to his first term, Mr. Trump has criticized the look of the Navy’s fleet and called for a return of the World War II-era vessels that were armed with 16-inch guns that were largely phased out for aircraft carriers whose warplanes could strike targets many hundreds of times farther away,” the New York Times reported.
It’s all about looks, not military strategy. The Wall Street Journal said that Trump has been personally involved in developing plans for a “Golden Fleet” of new Navy ships. It quoted former rear admiral Mark Montgomery as describing the $5-billion Trump Class ship as “exactly what we don’t need” because it is not “optimized to provide lethality against the Chinese threat” and will have “zero tactical use.”
Trump has also been personally involved in the design of the massive ballroom wing that is rising over the ruins of the White House’s East Wing.
According to the Washington Post, Trump had “clashed” with architect James McCrery II “over the president’s desire to keep increasing the size of the building.” McCrery’s firm was replaced as the architect, although that may have resulted from the small size of the firm and its performance on the job, the Post noted.
Think back to the many cinematic episodes of Trump’s second term so far: the DOGE show with Elon Musk (including the infomercial hawking Teslas on the White House grounds); the “Liberation Day” tariffs; the Oval Office meeting intended to humiliate Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky; the sending of federalized National Guard troops into overwhelmingly peaceful American cities.
Each of these events were grist for cable news and social media; most of them failed to accomplish any rational policy objective. That doesn’t mean that Trump hasn’t done anything. There are people in the US and around the world who have suffered as a result of the administration’s actions; others have benefited.
In his Truth Social post about the Kennedy Center Honors, Trump said he was hosting the show at the request of the center’s board and “and just about everybody else in America.”
That of course is not true.
There was no public clamor for Trump to host the show. But there would be millions of people delighted at the extremely unlikely sight of the president leaving the White House to become a full-time TV host.
What a great read. A tour de force!