Despite his promises, Donald Trump is not draining the swamp. Like everything else he touches, he just puts his own brand on it and sells it. And he conveys it: wherever Trump is, the swamp creatures swarm to be near him.
Since he won the election on November 5, Mar-a-Lago, Trump's beach playground on Florida's Palm Beach, has been a habitat for hangers-on, a state notoriously hospitable to swamps. Sycophants, billionaires, lobbyists and job seekers crowd the unswampy, bright-gold splendor, dressed in golf attire by day and formal wear by night, hoping to advance their special interests before the Swamp King.
Opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes takes a critical look at the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
The headlines after the election speak for themselves. Read “Inside the Trump-Fueled Lobbying Frenzy from Mar-a-Lago.” onefollowed by: “K Street lobbyists flock to Florida as the hub of power under Donald Trump shifts from Washington to Palm Beach.” Another: “An increase in demand and fees for lobbyists with ties to Trump.” And from the BBC: “Strength in the Palms: On the Pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.”
Never in its memory, perhaps never, has the nation experienced such an open, uncompromising and open attitude public Showcasing how the country's rich and well-connected people capitulate to and do business with a US president or future president. Get used to it. Trumps favorite historical period is the Gilded Age of the late 19th century; he recreates it for the 21st century.
Another current one Article about the Trump transition with the headline “Dinner at Mar-a-Lago is for power plays,” noting that when Trump enters the patio dining room each night, the assembled guests give him an invitation Standing ovation. At a table in the middle, surrounded by a rope to keep smaller creatures at a distance, the president-elect doubles as a DJ, spinning songs on his iPad – including “Space Oddity” by David Bowie, as the richest man of the world, electric vehicle inventor, rocket entrepreneur and… omnipresent “First mate“Elon Musk is coming to join Trump in center ring.
Trump “sits out there with everyone,” a wealthy Pennsylvanian who is a Mar-a-Lago member ($1 million upfront, $20,000 annually) told the Washington Post. “It’s a more challenging swamp, but it’s crazy,” said another regular. “You go to the club and you meet all these creatures.” However, a third member complained that there are so many supplicants crowding the place these days that he sometimes can't get a table.
But on Thursday evening, the waves parted ways for Trump's special guest, the world's second-richest man, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, aerospace company Blue Origin (a Musk competitor) and the Washington Post – all companies that have been helped or hurt could be measures taken by the Trump administration. Bezos is among the tech CEOs whose companies have done this donated $1 million for Trump's inauguration festivities, which has never been the case at previous inaugurations. Of course, Bezos' enemy Musk was also at the center of attention.
In addition to Trump himself – with its cryptocurrency businessMajority ownership of the social media network Truth Social, real estate, books, licensing deals, equity stakes in multiple industries, and new MAGA-branded merchandise every day – Musk may be the person who stands to benefit the most from the incoming administration. and the most real and obvious conflicts of interest in mixing business and government work. Musk has already made a significant return A quarter billion dollar investment in the election of Trump, a staggering number, but one that only represents 0.05% of his wealth, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index amounts to almost half a trillion dollars, or $474 billion.
Musk didn't have to wait for Trump to take office to benefit. He flaunts his influence as co-head of Trump's not-really-own Government Efficiency Department, along with Vivek Ramaswamy (another billionaire, hardly according to Forbes), Musk last week blasted a bipartisan year-end spending package with a volley of more than 150 social media attacks. And along with that, the bill went down restrict provisions Investments in China that could have restricted the ones Musk is pursuing.
Just a few days earlier, on Monday, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts had written to Trump, who is calling for safeguards against Musk's conflicts of interest while carrying out Trump's mandate to recommend ways to cut federal spending and regulations. For someone like Musk, with federal contracts worth billions of dollars, the unguarded approach, Warren said, is “an invitation to corruption on a scale we have not seen in our lifetime.”
This sentence could apply to the entire culture that Trump is building around himself for his second term. Influenced in Washington for years–The trade, which almost extends to bribery, has actually been legalized, largely thanks to a series of measures Supreme Court Decisions This makes criminal prosecutions more difficult and monetary donations easier. Both parties are taking full advantage of the lax environment, but no one is more brazen than Trump.
Suffice to say, Warren's plea for protection from Musk's personal hubris was not taken seriously in the Trump swamp. After all, it's the boss himself Resistance to federal ethical constraints that captivated other modern presidents; His team belatedly submitted a code of ethics consistent with the requirements of the Presidential Transition Act, but did not apply the requirements to Trump, according to the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. Team Trump's disparaging response to Warren came from Trump's transition spokeswoman, who denigrated the senator as “Pocahontas,” echoing Trump's schoolyard taunt.
The president-elect's assessment of the potential of Musk's self-dealing wasn't exactly reassuring when Time magazine raised the issue in its report interview after the magazine named him “Person of the Year.”
One of the interviewers noted that Musk will assume oversight of federal agencies that regulate his companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, “I don’t think so.” The questioner responded, pointing out that Musk had talked about cuts at NASA and SpaceX was a competitor. “Isn’t that the textbook definition of a conflict of interest?”
Trump deflected: “He puts the country above… his company.”
As Trump likes to say, “We’ll see.”