Trump’s White House renovations fulfill Obama’s prediction, kind of
President Barack Obama famously chided Donald Trump in April during the annual White House correspondents dinner The reality show star had repeatedly and falsely claimed that Obama had not been born in the United States and was therefore ineligible to be president Trump s demands that Obama release his birth certificate had in part made Trump a front-runner among Republican hopefuls for their party s nomination in the following year s presidential balloting Obama referred to Trump s presidential ambitions by joking that if elected Trump would bring several changes to the White House Obama then called attention to a satirical photo the guests could see of a remodeled White House with the words Trump and The White House in large purple letters followed by the words hotel casino and golf syllabus Obama s ridicule of Trump that evening has been credited with inspiring Trump to run for president in My book The Art of the Political Putdown includes Obama s chiding of Trump at the correspondents dinner to demonstrate how politicians use humor to establish superiority over a rival Obama s ridicule humiliated Trump who temporarily dropped the birther conspiracy before reviving it But Trump may have gotten the last laugh by using the humiliation of that night as several think as motivation in his run for the president in There is a further twist to Obama joking about Trump s renovations to the White House if Trump became president Trump has fulfilled Obama s prediction kind of The Trump administration has razed the East Wing which sits adjacent to the White House and will replace it with a -square-foot gold-encrusted ballroom that appears to reflect the ostentatious tastes of the president The US million ballroom will be twice the size of the White House It s expected to be big enough to accommodate nearly a thousand people Design renderings suggest that the ballroom will resemble the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago the president s private estate in Palm Beach Florida I don t have any plan to call it after myself Trump disclosed in recent weeks That was fake news Seemingly going to call it the presidential ballroom or something like that We haven t really thought about a name yet But senior administration personnel notified ABC News that they were already referring to the structure as The President Donald J Trump Ballroom The renovation will have neither a hotel casino nor golf class as Obama mentioned in his light-hearted speech at the correspondents dinner Obama pokes fun at Trump In the months before the correspondents dinner Trump had repeatedly claimed that Obama had not been born in Hawaii but had instead been born outside the United States perhaps in his father s home country of Kenya The baseless conspiracy theory became such a distraction that Obama issued his long-form birth certificate in April Three days later Obama delivered his speech at the correspondents dinner with Trump in the audience where he announced that Trump having put the birther conspiracy behind him could move to other conspiracy theories like suggests the moon landing was staged aliens landed in Roswell New Mexico or the unsolved murders of rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur Did we fake the moon landing Obama noted What really happened at Roswell And where are Biggie and Tupac Obama then poked fun at Trump s reality show The Apprentice and referred to how Trump who owned hotels casinos and golf courses might renovate the White House When Obama was finished Seth Meyers the host of the dinner made additional jokes at Trump s expense Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican which is surprising since I just assumed that he was running as a joke Meyers revealed Trump gets the last laugh The New Yorker magazine writer Adam Gopnik remembered watching Trump as the jokes kept coming at his expense Trump s humiliation was as absolute and as visible as any I have ever seen his head set in place like a man on a pillory he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him Gopnik wrote There was not a trace of feigning good humor about him Roger Stone one of Trump s top advisers announced Trump decided to run for president after he felt he had been publicly humiliated I think that is the night he resolves to run for president Stone stated in an interview with the PBS campaign Frontline I think that he is kind of motivated by it Maybe I ll just run Maybe I ll show them all Trump if Stone and other political observers are correct sought the presidency to avenge that humiliation I thought Oh Barack Obama is starting something that I don t know if he ll be able to finish commented Omarosa Manigault a former Apprentice contestant who became Trump s director of African American outreach during his first term Every critic every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump she announced It is everyone who s ever doubted Donald whoever disagreed whoever challenged him it is the ultimate revenge to become the majority powerful man in the universe The notoriously thin-skinned Trump did not attend the White House correspondents dinner during his first presidency He also did not attend the dinner during the first year of his second presidency Although Trump has never publicly acknowledged the importance of that event in a number of people have noted how pivotal it was demonstrating how the putdown can be a powerful weapon in politics even perhaps extending to tearing down the White House s East Wing Chris Lamb Professor of Journalism Indiana University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license Read the original article The post Trump s White House renovations fulfill Obama s prediction kind of appeared first on Salon com
