The Sleaze of Girl-Sized Olives in Man-Sized Martinis
President Donald Trump conducts business the same way he once overwhelmed girls and intends to overwhelm Nigeria: fast, vicious, sweet. The girls are now taboo and Nigeria has blended with background noise. But business is hot for the old bean, which came as a bit of a surprise.
The first surprise was how quickly Trump 47 coalesced power, causing even his head to spin. Of course, it surprised no one that he immediately resumed his unabashed consumption of taxpayer dollars to fly to his golfing weekends, football games, and wrestling championships, although his extravagant blowouts at Mar-a-Lago did cause some stir. But the taxpayer was not to wonder or complain. Trump stepped right up to the plate this time around and told us he was open for business, Trump business. We were to understand that he would engage in any real estate, cryptocurrency, or presidential library deal he felt like without excuse or permission; accept gifts from foreign and domestic agents; elicit donations from oligarchs in exchange for weakened antitrust oversight, disabled labor protections, and lucrative government contracts; sell off the country’s forests and wildlife reserves to timber and oil companies for quick cash; deport unidentified gardeners and passers-by to horrific fates in South Sudan they might not survive, maligning them as the worst of the worst in their absence; rough up senior citizens trying to protect them; designate anyone who objected a terrorist; and sue the bejeebers out of any institution that tried.
Americans are still debating what to think about all this. But universities agreed to his conditions. Law firms promised pro bono work. Media companies apologized. The astronomical cost of his hyper-presidential operations is not headline news. We don’t talk about his birthday parade anymore. No one mentions the Qatari gift of a plane Trump accepted for his presidential library, then whisked out of sight. The cost of his frivolous air travel or who’s paying for his Mar-a-Lago blowouts is not discussed. Though the first lady has once again chosen to live elsewhere than with her husband and Trump’s sons are nonstop globetrotters, not a peep is heard about through-the-roof secret service costs. Uncertain Americans have hunkered down to foot the bills of their extravagant president, despite the sting of his cutting their food programs and their library funds out of a passion for economy.
Trump’s third wonderful surprise was the acquiescence of the world to his reckless tariffs.
The second surprise was how effectively Trump muffled Congress, as if he had rolled up the lot in a large, dusty carpet. He let them know from the start that he would determine how American liberties and amendments were to be interpreted. He would dictate how Congressionally appropriated money would be spent, if at all. He would create emergencies out of thin air to butt his way through the Constitution. He would set tariffs. He would decide cease-fires and determine if they were maintained or not. He would decide what happened to Israel. He would announce which Latin American fishermen the U.S. was at war with. He would mobilize the military to wipe out small boats in Caribbean waters as he saw fit. He would bomb Iran. He would withhold seminal statistical reports on jobs, economy, and greenhouse gas emissions and worldwide humanitarian aid. He would sell F-35s to the Saudis if he wanted to. He would tell the DOJ whom to prosecute. He would trash our 300 billion beloved, if useless, American pennies with no plan to recycle or withdraw them from circulation — unless Elon Musk agreed to buy them from Trump personally for a dollar a piece.
Though somewhat muted from within that carpet, Congress’s response to of all of this has been “A-OK.”
Trump’s third wonderful surprise was the consternation, scramble, then acquiescence of the world to his reckless tariffs. Countries courted him, aligned their policies to suit him, wiped out centuries-old farming communities to make way for turbocharged Trump golf resorts in their choicest locations, promised to make crippling investments in U.S. projects Trump chose, quietly begged for mercy. It was a rush.
The biggest thrill was the visit from Swiss business leaders bearing gifts. It was November 4, a Tuesday. There he sat, just him, President Trump, all hunched over in his baggy dark suit, perched on the very edge of the seat of his leather armchair, thinning hair swept back, puckered face pale underneath the blush, hands folded resolutely on his Resolute Desk. And there they all were, six Swiss billionaires,1 seated in a semicircle facing him, leaning forward, attentive but not obsequious, pleasing in their Swiss-type European polish, reticent but articulate, polite, utterly posh. And they gave him — just like that — a bar of gold weighing one kilogram with his numbers stamped on it, “45” and “47.”2 A BIG BAR OF SOLID GOLD WITH HIS NUMBERS ON IT.
It was reported that Trump warmed to them immediately. Subsequent negotiations with the Swiss government advanced most commodiously, with Trump suddenly showing his gracious side, his generous side, his genial side, his pliant nature. After extracting a Swiss commitment to invest $200 billion in the United States,3 Trump decided, just like that, to lower tariffs on Swiss imports from 39% to . . . 15%. Switzerland was relieved, grateful, and a little staggered that this had just happened, that a few garish gestures could elicit the desired leniency, as if they had dropped a coin into an orange-tinted dispenser.
The high visibility of his new business venue did not concern Trump. He had no need to be discreet.
With the world finally catching on to him, Trump’s style of swift dealmaking gained a real head of steam and required a proper venue to accommodate the heavy traffic. Gone were the days when Trump would fly all over the world for deals whose outcomes were, in this phase of his career, certain. He had his boys out there cinching terms with countries before Trump even looked their way. Each country knew what policies President Trump was threatening to make life difficult and Trump’s boys knew what arrangement their father would accept. No one ever refused his boys. Countries complied with his terms.4 With no guesswork, Trump had no need to chase anyone. Those heads of state could come to him now, and he expected them all to show up. For that he needed the right venue.
Equal in importance to palatial space and regal ambience was security. The people coming to see him weren’t just the richest in the world. They were monarchs, sovereigns, heads of state, kings, princes, dictators, international felons, and war criminals. Truthfully, who else could offer anything worth Trump’s attention? Consequently, Trump’s prospective business venue required high security, White House-level security. In addition to protecting himself and his powerful, high-profile guests, Trump had to be careful to screen out those who did not belong, the normal Joes, the American citizen paying for it all. Let them watch remotely from their social media devices. That would satisfy.
The high visibility of his new business venue did not concern Trump. He had no need to be discreet. The country had come to understand his business as the country’s business. They were accustomed to seeing murderers, assassins, and poisoners frequent his gilded Oval Office5 for chummy chats during which they exchanged favors publicly. Americans were fed loads of clips of their president accepting unheard-of gifts from petitioners domestic and foreign. Providing a huge, highly visible space for these transactions posed no risk to Trump’s optics and was much more convenient for him.
Visibility was, in fact, a huge advantage for the dealmaker nonpareil. No longer would Trump have to hint to each how many others were vying for his attention. In having his supplicants come to him in his One Big, Beautiful Ballroom they could see who their competition was. They would also be able to observe the tributes dropped into the sack held by the attendant at the ballroom entrance, no embarrassment, no pretense, no feigning required. Trump was indeed, as Karoline Leavitt so often boasted, the most transparent president in U.S. history. He is the visionary who burnished political, business, and personal bribery into an undifferentiated, unadulterated, monolithic sheen of modern corruption as smooth, gleaming, and solid as the massive ebony conference table Putin pilfered for his dacha.
When the Donald J. Trump Ballroom opens for business, the American public will have to brace for one more unsavory wrinkle: Trump’s resuscitation of Epstein-era festivities.
Sacrificing the East Wing of the White House to make way for the Donald J. Trump Ballroom was logical and painless. That wing had been built for girls. It had offices for the first lady, her staff, correspondence staff, calligraphers, a social secretary, all work and function stuff for which Trump had no use. He did the functioning now, he did the deals, he did everything. Office space wasted on anyone besides himself was space he had better use for. So, with no further ado, he had the East Wing demolished. It took four days.
When the Donald J. Trump Ballroom opens for business, the American public will have to brace for one more unsavory wrinkle: Trump’s resuscitation of Epstein-era festivities. Yes, Jeffrey Epstein may be gone, but Trump’s tastes haven’t changed. The glitter and hype, the shimmies and squeals, the shaking and rumble, the hilarity and hysteria coming from that ballroom will become regular fodder on social media channels. The sumptuous banquets served and the food discarded will be legendary.
But let no one dare think this is Trump playing around. Quite the contrary. Whatever takes place in his White House ballroom will be strictly business, never so serious, never so expensive, and never so lucrative. The upside, thanks to Trump’s transparency, is no taxpayer will have to wonder who’s paying for the girls trapped in man-sized martinis watching Trump do business — we are.
- Diego Aponte, president of shipping group MSC; Marwan Shakarchi, CEO of gold refiner MKS PAMP Group; Jean-Frederic Dufour, CEO of Rolex; Alfred Gantner, a founder of private equity firm Partners Group; Daniel Jaeggi, president of energy trader Mercuria; and Richemont Chairman Johann Rupert. ↩︎
- Trump accepted the gifts for his presidential library, making the bribes legal. “Bookwormy Trump” provides an inside look at the shady process of finding right site for Trump’s presidential library. ↩︎
- It is an investment Trump looks forward to brokering himself with partners of his choice, Qatar, perhaps, Saudi Arabia, and Unusual Machines, a drone accessory company whose business has soared ever since the company activated a board specifically to give Don Trump Jr. a seat on it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/10/29/donald-trump-jr-ultimate-machines-defense-contracts-drones/ ↩︎
- Chronicled in “The Trump Boys.” ↩︎
- With his overweening, indiscriminate preference for glitter, Trump has succeeded in making gold look vulgar. ↩︎