Daily Archives: April 11, 2021

What do US presidents do once they leave the White House? Barack Obama kite-surfed with Richard Branson. Jimmy Carter returned to his peanut farm and found that it was $1m in debt. George W Bush got into painting.

Its early days, but Donald Trumps post-presidential life has been just like his presidency: non-traditional. Aside from setting up an eyebrow-raising new website, and releasing wannabe tweets as official statements, hes spent most of his time inside his new home at Mar-a-Lago, the giant and exclusive resort he owns in south Florida.

We know very little about what hes doing there, and after the unavoidable spectacle of his presidency, many people are probably comfortable with that. But for those still interested we decided to take a virtual holiday there, and look inside the gilded walls of Mar-a-Lago via the only way we could: Instagram.

Using the Instagram page that collects all the public posts geotagged Mar-a-Lago, anyone can comb through thousands of photos and videos to see whats been happening inside its gilded walls, and catch glimpses of what Trump has been up to.

We know already that he recently crashed a wedding, giving a speech where he railed against Biden and China before raising a toast to himself, and then the happy couple. But thats not everything. Heres what we found from guests photos:

Taking photos with fans is something all past presidents do. But there is still something unique about how Trump lives at his own resort, wakes up in the morning and walks throughout his new home taking photos with its paying members.

In one video uploaded recently from Mar-a-Lago, Trump suddenly appears as a couple pose for engagement photos. He was also spotted wandering around a car show on 21 March hosted at the resort. And in March he appeared at a fundraiser for the Big Dog Ranch Rescue, a charity linked to Lara Trump that was recently in the news for spending almost $2m at Trump-owned properties in the last seven years.

Trump has been mingling with Mar-a-Lago members for many years now. During his early presidency he even crashed a wedding right after receiving news of a North Korean missile test, while hosting the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Trump told the wedding guests that he had bumped into the newlyweds earlier and tried to cajole Abe over to them. I said to the prime minister of Japan, I said, Cmon Shinzo, lets go over and say hello. Theyve been members of this club for a long time. Theyve paid me a fortune.

The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, was the first top Republican to signal the party wasnt abandoning Trump after the attack on Capitol on 6 January, when he appeared in a photo with Trump at Mar-a-Lago three weeks later.

This seemingly opened the gates for Republicans to make the pilgrimage to Palm Beach and hobnob with Trump. Many of them have uploaded their photos with him to Instagram, or can be spotted in photos uploaded to the app. This includes the 25-year-old House representative from North Carolina Madison Cawthone, the former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and the Republican extremist from Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene.

On 13 March a delegation of Alabama Republicans also presented Trump with a framed resolution at Mar-a-Lago, which declared him one of the greatest and most effective presidents in the 245 year of this republic.

In many ways Mar-a-Lago is just another US venue where people dont wear masks. Given the lack of mask-wearing at Trumps White House, where he hosted at least one super-spreader event in the Rose Garden, its not surprising that many Mar-a-Lago guests are also mingling mask-free.

But theres something still striking about seeing so many maskless people inside a building owned by a former president who contracted Covid himself, had access to the best information about it, and whose mismanaged response to the crisis saw half a million Americans die from the virus.

In one video uploaded on 13 March, the charity fashion show for Big Dog Ranch, (called Wine, Women and Shoes) is in full swing inside a huge function room. The room seems to be filled with hundreds of people. Another photo shows a slide projected on to a screen that reads More than 47,000 lives saved since 2008, referring of course to the dogs.

None of the guests seem to be wearing masks, but the staff serving them are. Some may be vaccinated, but Covid is still very much a risk at Mar-a-Lago. The charity event took place just six days before the resort was partly closed due to an outbreak among its staff.

Unless you count the Trump family, Sylvester Stallone is the only celebrity Ive been able to find in photos taken at Mar-a-Lago. From the date and caption it looks like he was there having dinner on 6 March when he took a photo with a fellow guest.

In another photo uploaded less recently on 20 December, we can also see Roger Stone having a good time with another guest. Their caption on the photo reads Only positive comments please he was far nicer than someone else!

You may have seen the photo already of Trump posing with Stephen Miller in his Mar-a-Lago office its by no means exclusive to Instagram.

Seemingly set up to project an all-American work ethic (that we know from the last four years Trump doesnt have), whats most striking about the photo is the bottle of coke hidden behind Trumps phone. Two days earlier, Trump had called on his supporters to boycott companies speaking out about Georgias new voting law which, funnily enough, included Coke.

Originally posted here:

Whats Donald Trump up to these days? I tried to find out via Instagram - The Guardian

FormerPresident Donald Trumplost a great deal of money during his four years in theWhite House, new data shows.

Forbes released its annual billionaires list on Tuesday, which found the former president ranked at1,299. Last year, he was ranked at 1,001 and in 2019 at 715.

Trumps net worth was roughly $3.5 billion in 2017, according to the publication, dropping to $2.1 billion in 2020 and ending up around $2.4 billion in 2021.

Trump made it clear during his presidency on numerous occasions that he was not getting richer in the White House.

In 2019, for example, the former president estimated that it had cost him anywhere between $2 billion and $5 billion to serve as president.

"I wouldve made a fortune if I just ran my business I was doing it really well," Trump said at the time.

Trump still is the only billionaire to serve as president, Forbes noted.

Read more at FOXBusiness.com.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson on Thursday, April 8, but the senator hasn't said if he's running for re-election.

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Donald Trumps net worth dropped by one-third during his presidency - FOX 6 Milwaukee

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, U.S. February 28, 2021.

Octavio Jones | Reuters

Former President Donald Trump's political action committee has amassed a war chest of more than $85 million as he builds an operation meant to take on his enemies and possibly fuel another run for president in 2024.

Save America, Trump's leadership PAC, heads into the second quarter with that gargantuan sum of cash on hand, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who declined to be named as the fundraising data has not been made public.

The PAC raised more than $30 million from late November through December, and finished last year with $31 million on hand, Federal Election Commission filings show.

This person did not say how much the PAC raised in the first quarter, noting that it files disclosures semiannually, which means the public likely won't see details on Trump's fundraising success until the summer. The total also does not include the cash on hand for other Trump-affiliated PACs, including the Trump Make America Great Again Committee.

Trump has significant resources to deploy as he looks to influence the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans will try to make inroads in both the House and Senate. Democrats currently control both chambers of Congress.

Trump, however, has targeted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and promised to back GOP "primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First." The former president turned on McConnell after the senator said Trump bore responsibility for the mob of his supporters that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump is expected to speak at the Republican National Committee's spring retreat this weekend. He has not ruled out running for president again.

Meanwhile, Trump has become involved in the battle brewing between Republican lawmakers and corporations who have come out against a new law in Georgia that critics say restricts voting. The former president falsely claimed widespread fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election in the state, and urged Georgia officials to overturn President Joe Biden's win there.

"It is finally time for Republicans and Conservatives to fight backwe have more people than they doby far! Boycott Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS, and Merck," Trump said in a statement Saturday.

Major League Baseball announced a day earlier that it would pull its All-Star Game out of Atlanta after Georgia's latest voting bill was signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. MLB is reportedly moving the game to Colorado.

Trump's $85 million haul also arrives as he is reportedly looking to create his own social media network after being banned by both Twitter and Facebook.

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Former President Trump's PAC has $85 million on hand as he prepares for midterms and possible 2024 run - CNBC

Two writers discuss why satirizing Donald Trump is exceedingly difficult.

Will Mann: At the height of the 2016 presidential primary, right as there was the collective bafflement that hey, the host of The Apprentice could actually win the Republican nomination, comedy website Funny or Die released Donald Trumps The Art of the Deal: The Movie, a 50-minute presentation where Johnny Depp, under heavy prosthetics, played the then future-president. The film was released exclusively to the Funny or Die website on February 26, 2016.

I remember watching it and loving it at the time. It felt subversive, unapologetically in-your-face, and very much deliberately mocking its central target for ridicule. Moreover, at the end of it, Depps Trump comes from the future of 2017 to tell his 1980s counterpart that he will indeed become president one day. It seemed like a ludicrous joke at the time but instead became an eerie, all-too-prescient prediction, making the movie stand out even as comedy sought to capitalize on the Trump administration for the four years of its existence.

The film claims to be a TV movie-of-the-week written, directed, and starring Trump himself, and was considered long lost (it was preempted by Monday Night Football in 1988Trump was furious) until director Ron Howard, in a cameo, explains how he came across the original film reels. It turned up at a yard sale outside Phoenix, Arizona, Howard explains, claiming he had to physically wrestle it from a nice woman named Jenny, [who was] much stronger than she looked [and] very persistent. Once the presentation is over, Howard once again speaks to the camera and says Wow. That wasawful. I mean hauntingly bad, it kind of wants to make me rethink my passion for filmmaking. You know, we should probably pretend that this film, and in fact Donald Trump, never even existed.

The film features an all-star cast that includes Patton Oswalt as Merv Griffin; 30 Rocks Jack McBrayer as Trump Tower architect Der Scutt; Kristen Schaal as the voice of Trumps receptionist Gloria (whom Trump refers to solely as Deborah); Jacob Tremblay as the typical 80s kid Trump recounts his life story to; The Fonz himself, Harry Winkler, as former-New York City mayor Ed Koch; Christopher Lloyd as Back to the Futures Doc Brown; and even two of the hosts of my favorite podcast, How Did This Get Made?: Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas. Depp as Trump walks a rotating cast of curious young boys through his life story and career, as the film recounts many of Trumps pre-presidential controversies, including the destruction of priceless Art Deco sculptures at the future site of Trump Tower and Trumps feud with former NFL commission Pete Rozelle (Andy Richter).

It all just felt like a minor coup at the time, more than just a gimmick. It leaned into its own inherent ridiculousness, such as when ALF was depicted as being the best man at Trumps wedding to first wife Ivana (Michaela Watkins). Funny or Die was sticking it to Trump through the power of satire. We simply thought the movie would be a chance to capitalize for what seemed to be a brief time in U.S. history where we were captivated by the prospect of Donald Trump actually running for president. They even got Kenny Loggins, known for classic 80s movie theme staples like Footloose, Im Alright from Caddyshack, and Danger Zone from Top Gun, to contribute a typically corny and 80s-sounding theme song. The song itself is surprisingly catchy and very evocative of the era, as well as the type of self-promotion Trump himself would indulge in.

Now, re-watching the movie 5 years after the fact feels like youre seeing a template for how many in the comedy field would address Trump in the four years of his administration that followed. I think its fair to say that you agree with that assessment?

Rigel Kaufman: If anyone is nave enough to think that the era of Donald Trump parody is finally over, is mistaken. The horse was beaten to glue long before Saturday Night Live sunk its anti-Midas clutches into it, yet the beating will continue long into the future. In The Art of the Deal: The Movie, that prophecy is spun, and the left-leaning politic of almost every creative outlet in the United States is showcased. As Donald Trump still lives and breathes, and his presence in a headline still gathers eyes, he will be a leading topic. Dissidents and the politically disillusioned are looking for a way to upset things, the easiest way being supporting things that establishments tell them to hate. Most Trump coverage is not positive. In other words, Hollywood probably helped to get Donald Trump elected, and continues to ensconce him as a pariah-Marilyn-Monroe.

Parody operates on a bell curve of exaggeration vs payoff. On the far left side of the curve, we have Johnny Depp as Donald Trump offering a child a steak that he pulled from his desk. On the far right side of the curve, him defending Hitler from criticismhard-hitting stuff, I know. And somewhere in the middle are the three or four actually funny moments in The Art of the Deal: The Movie, far too few to justify its 50-minute runtime, but enough to examine the framework that every attempt at Trump satirization has obeyed, and why fundamentally these have all been failures, both comically and as political rhetoric:

Impression: Donald Trump talks and looks a certain way, lets copy him.

Yuge, appending Ok? to the end of sentences, talking in exaggeration, gesticulating drawing a wire tight with both forefingers and thumbs, and your standard-fare haircut, suit, and tan gags. At once an elementary form of comedy and the only sphere in which the jokes ever land, because they at least mandate timing.

Current Events: Donald Trump did or said an outlandish thing recently, lets bring that in somehow. There are endless, endless lists of forced and genuine controversy, including but not limited to: dumping his container of koi food during the Shinzo Abe visit; being a Russian spy; saying 7/11 instead of 9/11; releasing his tax returns; golfing too much; enough people complaining about one of the businesses he owns; being impeached; refusing to condemn certain groups; condemning certain groups; saying something provocative to the press, etc. Strictly referential humor and every reference has had all novelty tapped. Nobody on either side of the aisle laughs at these jokes, they simply nod or shake their head with the same solemn frown.

Political Browbeating: Donald Trump is defined by a shortlist of politically incorrect stances, some of which are more or less topical right now; we must contest one or all of these. About as funny as government programming, these are the face-the-camera moments where the Trump fiction commits suicide ad nauseam. Whereas current events at least have the boon of the few days between when they happen and when theyre exhausted, these public service announcements are harped into the same pit of oblivion as words repeated out loud too many times: meaningless combinations of syllables that convey an idea independent from the words they form. If there were ever a panacea to clever humor, this would be it.

Tagline History: Quotable tidbits that still persist in the public memory: small loan of one million dollars. Sloganeering that tries and fails to be weaponized, instead coming off as cheap disparagement or catch-phrasing. Filler.

Name-calling: Self-explanatory.

Mann: I think that how you tie this in to how Trump has been depicted these past four years is very interesting. I think part of what made The Art of the Deal: The Movie stand out when it was initially released was that you had someone who was already a very well-known celebrity running for president. We already knew who he was, the type of person he was, and most, but not all, of the controversies that would be generated on the campaign trail. A media narrative didnt have to adapt or invent a character (think about what The Onion did in terms of depicting Joe Biden, whose jokes and characterization still follow him even now during his actual presidency), or ridicule a candidate once we started to understand who they were, a la Tina Feys depiction of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.

But what I appreciated about the movie at the time was that it acknowledged that Donald Trump was this bigger-than-life character who comes off, in both the movie and in real life, as a sleaze-ball and a doofus. He also feels intrinsically tied to the 1980s in particular, this sort of Gordon Gekko come to life, the embodiment of the decade of excess itself. The corny Kenny Loggins song, the 80s movie-of-the-week vibe, the constant appearances of celebrities and characters from pop culture, it all resonated because it felt like the movie was making fun of the way that Donald Trump saw himself.

But unfortunately, now it feels like the movie was playing into Trumps own narrative ever so slightly in order to upend it, make fun of it, and point out its inherent ridiculousness. For example, its odd to have scenes featuring Depp-as-Trump dancing and rapping with actors portraying the iconic 1980s rap group the Fat Boys. Then again, the man himself danced to a spoof of Drakes hit song Hotline Bling while hosting Saturday Night Live during his actual presidential run. Go figure.

But, as you previously noted, the movie also displays some of the difficulty in depicting a character as well-known and, to put it mildly, flawed as Trump. The meta-joke of the movie is that its a vanity project for him, and that notion is committed to fully. But that formula also prevents any sort of self-reflection or nuance. The Trump as depicted in The Art of the Deal: The Movie, is, for all intents and purposes, a caricature. That proves to be difficult to reconcile when, in a few short months, he becomes the new reality we are all collectively forced to deal with. His inherent ridiculousness was already pointed out even before this movie came out, and people, literally tens of millions of voters, still fell for it. What exactly does that say about the point the movie was trying to drive home?

In re-watching the film for the first time since its initial release recently, it definitely did not hold up as well as I was expecting, becoming a victim of diminishing returns. Moreover, the whole thing feels rather pass at this point. For example, it feels weird that ALF shows up, but Rudy Giuliani doesnt. Sure, there are moments that still ring true, such as when Trump keeps replacing the boys who ask him about his life story until he gets a white one. But, if anything, the movie feels like its the final capstone on who Trump used to be, pre-presidency. Trump-as-president was a different beast altogether, which makes this satire feel more toothless in retrospect. Your thoughts?

Kaufman: The problem which most people have already realized subconsciously, is twofold:

All of the political tropes are taken verbatim. Because the creators of this and every other Donald Trump parody have decided that political signaling is the most important part of their satire, modifying his positions too much for the sake of comedy muddies the waters. So instead, these are played as straight as possible. No minds are being changed, instead, positions are being fortified on both sides. And naturally, these arent funny. There is no subversion outside of occasional wordplay.

All of the non-political tropes are played up. The problem is Donald Trump is already an exaggerated person, and too much exaggeration is counterproductive to both humor and rhetoric. Trumps linguistic quirks are funny, having him shout them over a megaphone is annoying. Trumps appearance is funny, turning him into an orange clown with an afro is unneeded. Trump already throws out lots of childish insults, you dont need to have him call people stinky doo-doo heads.Humor, like most good things, is a difficult balancing act where things from the extremes of the bell curve must be pulled towards the middle to be made clever instead of hackneyed or bombastic. Parody and satire live or die by the subtle jabs that sneak up on you. Occupying a dissonant perspective that attempts to both persuade via ridicule and entertain via ridicule is not only impossible but will actively hamper your ability to do either. Perhaps the entire industry has by chance forgotten how to be funny and fallen prey to the same traps and tired frameworks all at once for five continuous years. It seems unlikely.

The individual problem is Donald Trumps humor potential is maximized when you hold up a mirror, and even then, the comedy was never a grand trove. The larger problem is humor demands novelty, subversion, and timing, which the Trump satires actively dispose of. The grand problem is that political humor has been circling the toilet for over a decade because all opinions both formal and farcical are coming almost exclusively from one quadrant of the political compass, in which the list of topics that are verboten is ever-growing, yielding content hegemony and the simultaneous politicization and sanitation of fictionat the peril of, at best, consumability, at worst, artistic freedom to be even slightly provocative.

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Revisiting 2016's 'Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal: The Movie' and the Comedy of the Trump Era - International Policy Digest