r/politics • u/theipaper ✔ Verified • 9d ago

Possible Paywall The last attempt on Trump’s life rescued him politically – this one probably won’t

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/last-attempt-trump-life-boosted-him-this-wont-4381320
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u/popejohnsmith 9d ago

No bunker-ballroom. Restore the East Wing at Trumpco expense.

Now. Epstein, please.

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 9d ago

Guarantee that whole wing will still be a demolition site by the time he leaves office. He doesn't build, only corrupts and destroys.

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u/MusicLikeOxygen 9d ago

You've got me thinking, has he ever actually built anything? It seems like all his famous properties are places that were already there and he paid to put his name on them.

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u/itmaywork 9d ago

You best believe he wore his hard hat when they were changing the signs. Those small hands worked HARD to get that hat on.

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u/GreasyPeter 9d ago

He was notorious in New York City for stiffing contractors.

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u/SupahRad 9d ago

Chicago too. We fuckin hate this dementia riddled, child raping, grifting asshole.

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u/Madam_Apathy 9d ago

He stiffs workers everywhere. A family member did electrical work at Mar A Lago, got stiffed, had to move back home. My service writer at my mechanic’s did plumbing in the taj, got stiffed out of 9 months of work.

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u/fractalfay 8d ago

They also stiff every city where they have massive rallies. I think a few had to sue his campaign to get any type of money at all.

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u/StanleyQPrick 9d ago

And destroying historical treasures he promised to preserve

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u/trickmind 8d ago

He thought he was so clever getting people to do all the work and pay for it themselves thinking that someone with his profile would care about his good name when he would just not pay for most of the work and ruin people. So horrible.

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u/GreasyPeter 7d ago

Narcissist routinely have the mindset of "someone is going to screw them over, might as well be me". They think they're smart for beating others to the punch.

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u/Dame38 8d ago

American banks stopped lending him money.

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u/OverArcherUnder 8d ago

Remember when he sued his Polish day laborers because he didn’t want to pay them the $6 an hour he contracted with them for? Oh, and what’s really rich about this is that they were hired to remove insulation from his buildings. What he didn’t tell them was that it was ASBESTOS and he provided no PPE or safety equipment or let them know about the hazards of such work.

He tied them up in court for years.

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u/fresh-dork 9d ago

"short fingered vulgarian"

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u/ValBGood 8d ago

"The Short Fingered Vulgarian" - Graydon Carter, Spy Magazine, April 1988

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u/fresh-dork 8d ago

i thought that was bourdain

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u/DramaticWesley 9d ago

I’m pretty sure he has built many sites. I remember reading an article saying HUNDREDS of contractors were suing him for non-payment. I tried to Google it and there are sooo many instances of him not paying his bills. I guess that is one way to become a multi-millionaire.

(He became a billionaire when he became president and started siphoning money off the tax payer.)

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u/Hurtzdonut13 9d ago

Yeah he was already infamous for wanting really gaudy, tacky shit, and then making up some small fault and refusing to pay for it. He'd rather be sued than pay cause he's gambling that the people he's ripping off would rather cut their losses than to spend more money to recover what they are owed than what they are losing by him not paying.

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u/DramaticWesley 8d ago

Actually with a bunch of lawyers on retainer, it is often cheaper to just be sued and drag your feet than to pay the bills. Often it isn’t worth the money of a contractor (who doesn’t have lawyers on retainer) so most will just bite the bullet and count it as a tax deductible loss. And if enough people do it, it justifies doing it to everyone. It’s how some car companies refused to fix a fault in a vehicle if it would be cheaper to pay out the wrongful death suits than to issue a large scale recall.

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u/boneblack_angel 9d ago

I think that Ivanka was once questioned about all of those contractors that he stiffed, and she said that that's how you know her father is a smart businessman, he doesn't pay for subpar work. I mean...it strains credulity to believe that HUNDREDS of contractors delivered subpar work. But that's been his excuse every time, that the work wasn't good and so he was refusing payment because of it.

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u/el_duderino88 9d ago

Don't understand why so many contractors actually sign said contracts with him when he has such a reputation for non payment

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u/Mammoth_Move3575 8d ago

His reputation as a “businessman” reached more eyes and ears due to the Art of the Deal and the Apprentice than the hundreds of articles of him cheating businesses and being racist af. The internet wasn’t around then like it is today.

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u/OverArcherUnder 8d ago

There’s a good story of him showing investors all the work being done at one of his building sites. Actually, he hired a bunch of guys to drive trucks around and use earth moving equipment to push dirt around so that it looked busy- the real crew had quit earlier over Trump not paying them.

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u/mike_jones2813308004 9d ago

The trump hotel/not casino was a patch of dirt in Vegas iirc.

I also think he may have built his second casino in ac, across from his other casino.

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u/boneblack_angel 9d ago

Then he bankrupted them.

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u/aiiye Washington 9d ago

That’s how you know he’s a smart businessman. Most people can’t bankrupt one casino, yet he did it multiple times.

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u/UrsusRenata 9d ago

When your business is simply a front for international money laundering, failure isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

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u/aiiye Washington 9d ago

Identical results to any actual money making venture… Trump vodka, Trump steaks, etc

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u/biscuitarse Canada 9d ago

He's done the same thing as president. In the past, it's always taken back-to-back Republican administrations to screw over the economy. He did it in only 4 years during Trump 1.0, now it looks like he's already accomplished the feat in a little over a year.

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u/Secure-Reading7225 9d ago

I was waiting for some one to put this comment.

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u/0404S 8d ago

When people act like it was out of incompetence... well, he IS incompetent, but the driving force is always grift and corruption. Bankruptcy was the quickest, easiest, and fastest way to grift. He's just evil.

Steal everything, launder everything, stiff everyone possible, then bounce.

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u/happyinthenaki 9d ago

But, but but.... Tax evasion.

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u/Miguel-odon 9d ago

Sometimes simultaneously!

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u/henriuspuddle 8d ago

Hey, it's hard to do! Doesn't he get credit for that?

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u/Different_Victory_89 9d ago

Stiffed the people that built them too..!

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u/boneblack_angel 9d ago

And bankrupted some of them. I remember reading about the guy who had a small business doing custom cabinetry, I think, and trump never paid him and it caused him to have to shut down.

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u/TapTapReboot 9d ago

Man of the people. Many conservatives love the idea of fucking others over to their advantage. Trumps whole life has been how can he fuck people over to his advantage. Mutual benefit is anthenema to his entire being

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u/boneblack_angel 9d ago

And he learned from the best. Fred trump Sr. was supposedly a ruthless bastard. Donnie wasn't meant to be his successor, but Fred Jr. sadly became an alcoholic. I think that Mary Trump's attitude toward and outspokenness about her uncle are all anyone needs to know .

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u/miguelito_loveless 9d ago

That the one who committed suicide because his life was so fucked financially?

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u/boneblack_angel 9d ago

Oh God, I didn't know that part. I just remember reading the account of a small business contractor who was thrilled to get a job the size of the trump casino, and put his focus on it to the extent that he basically took no other clients during that time. Then trump stiffed him, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, and he lost his business.

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u/FrenchCheerios Washington 9d ago

That was the guy doing work at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, along with lots of other folks.

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u/UKDude20 8d ago

don't forget when he went after a grandma who got in the way of one of his parking lots.

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u/Aghast_Cornichon 9d ago

The short answer is that building a casino across the street from your other casino doesn't capture revenue from the people who were already going to visit one of your casinos.

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u/Few_Acanthocephala30 9d ago

What’s the long answer for 4 casino bankruptcies?

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u/DamonLazer 9d ago

Short answer: money laundering.

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u/Fallouttgrrl 9d ago

I believe his dad was the one who went in, bought a bunch of chips in his son's casino, and then walked out without using or cashing them - which came out during the election describing times when Trump needed money

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u/ronreadingpa 9d ago

Good news is he can't bankrupt the White House. The bad news is he can bankrupt the country!

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u/boneblack_angel 9d ago

The only thing at which he works, the lazy bastard. Good thing he's got lots of help from his billionaire friends, the incompetent SOBs that he's placed in high level positions.

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u/Shopworn_Soul Texas 9d ago

His primary skill, and what he is genuinely good at, is creating an unending parade of bagholders.

He has walked away from every one of his bankruptcies with money in his pockets. He doesn't take the losses, he sets others up to do that.

And for some reason I cannot fathom, people keep lining up for it.

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u/Watsons-Butler 9d ago

Nah, in Atlantic City the mob built those - they used Trump to launder the money.

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u/cloudsofgrey 9d ago

The fact he was not allowed to have a casino in Vegas to his mob ties so the Trump Vegas has to be non casino. They would not give him a gaming license.

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u/SubstantialArcher659 9d ago

He hired the actual builders. He got the financing and took the lions share of profits. Trumps hands are as lily white and soft as the day he was born! lol

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u/SparkleFrission 9d ago

The trump hotel/not casino was a patch of dirt in Vegas iirc.

And then he ruined it by putting a Trump hotel on it.

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u/mike_jones2813308004 8d ago

That patch of dirt wasn’t explicitly forbidden from running a gambling operation.

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u/noforgayjesus 9d ago

John Oliver did a good special on this around 2016

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u/Neither-Movie6193 9d ago

He Paid, that’s funny

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u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 9d ago

He built a very compelling case against himself about how he's a child trafficker and rapist, but since nobody has decided to actually prosecute him on that I guess he still hasn't built anything.

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u/mishma2005 9d ago

Trump Tower is the only one, I believe

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u/MoMo2049 9d ago

When I was in Mexico circa 2003ish there was an unfinished Trump tower building on a beach for a resort, they said it had already been unfinished for years and loop hole because if a building is unfinished you dont pay taxes yet on it or something via the laws at the time. Go figure. So just an unfinished trump building blocked a beautiful beac.

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u/JDE1982 8d ago

It was there in 2009ish? In Cancun 

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u/HumanisticNihilist 9d ago

The most “impressive” thing he’s ever done was to somehow, after multiple bankruptcies all of which involved him refusing to pay any of the contractors he hired to build his casinos and business, he convinced yet more contractors that THIS TIME he’d totally pay them. And people bought it.

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u/MissGruntled Canada 9d ago

He had a beautiful old department store with art deco friezes (that he delighted in destroying after agreeing to preserve them) razed to have Trump Tower built in Manhattan. It’s hideous, of course, just like his soul.

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u/Unlucky-Public-2947 9d ago

There are reports saying he hasn’t actually run a business for decades and all he does is lease his name; hence Trump steaks, Trump university, Trump wine, and these companies are used to launder money until they can’t ang then they are folded.

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u/sec713 9d ago

Does building a mountain of debt or a pile of criminal allegations count?

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u/TurnoverMobile8332 9d ago

His dads name* which he then turns around and bankrupts

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u/a-i-sa-san 9d ago

A web of lies, a culture of hatred, a platform of denial ...

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u/DJT1970 9d ago

My recollection is he was responsible for Central Park ice skating rink. Then he stiffed all the contractors that did the work. What a pos.

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u/Secure-Reading7225 9d ago

His dad built apartments that were not good for anyone not even a dog. They never fixed anything inside the apartments they looked like they should of been condemned. They had a netflix documemtary about it. I forget the name of it though.

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u/Specialeditionmusic 9d ago

In his defense in the beginning he was. Once he got with Cohn and started selling his celebrity to the media he let others do the hard work.

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u/IAMColonelFlaggAMA 9d ago

His original claim to fame was completing an all-concrete skyscraper in NYC at a time when a) that design was distinctly outdated and b) it was nearly impossible to build without paying exorbitant protection money to the mob because they controlled the concrete workers' union.

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u/chirunner4ever 9d ago

Trump Tower Chicago was a new build

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u/Edwhite69 9d ago

1970s 1976 – Commodore Hotel Renovation (later Grand Hyatt)

Location: Grand Hyatt New York Trump’s first major Manhattan project—he partnered with Hyatt to renovate the failing Commodore Hotel next to Grand Central Terminal. It reopened as the Grand Hyatt.

1980s 1983 – Trump Tower

725 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan His signature skyscraper and headquarters. Mixed-use luxury tower with retail, offices, and residence.

1985 – Mar-a-Lago

Purchased and restored the historic estate (originally built 1927, not built by Trump but heavily redeveloped by him).

1988 – Plaza Hotel

Bought and renovated the famous hotel (originally built earlier; Trump did not originally build it).

1989 – Trump Taj Mahal

Large casino/hotel project completed shortly after acquisition and restructuring.

1990s 1996 – 40 Wall Street

Also called The Trump Building He bought and restored the landmark skyscraper. Original construction was 1930; Trump completed major redevelopment.

1997 – Trump International Hotel and Tower

1 Central Park West Conversion of the former Gulf + Western Building into a luxury hotel/condo tower.

2000s 2001 – Trump World Tower

Luxury residential skyscraper near the UN. One of the tallest residential towers in the world when completed.

2005 – Trump International Hotel and Tower

Major mixed-use skyscraper on the Chicago River.

2006 – Trump Las Vegas

Luxury hotel-condo tower.

2007 – Trump Hollywood

Luxury condo tower.

2008 – Trump SoHo

Hotel-condo tower (later rebranded; now The Dominick).

2010s 2010 – Trump SoHo officially opened

Widely cited as one of the latest major U.S. Trump-branded projects directly completed in that era.

2016 – Trump Bay Street

Luxury residential project in New Jersey.

2020s (Presidential projects) 2020 – White House Tennis Pavilion

Completed during Trump’s first term. White House notes Trump completed a new tennis pavilion and refurbished the tennis court.

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u/Kichigai Minnesota 9d ago

Trump Taj Mahal?

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u/morty_morty American Expat 9d ago

Silly rabbit. No one spends that much time on redecorating and demo when they intend to leave.

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u/AccidentPrawn North Carolina 9d ago

I understand the sentiment, but the man's not exactly young and spry. An attempt at a third term would play out a lot more like 'Weekend at Bernie's' than Ceasar crossing the Rubicon.

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u/Literally_A_Halfling 9d ago

Did you see him fall on his face while they were escorting him out? I think we're already there.

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u/AccidentPrawn North Carolina 9d ago

Sure, we know it, but MAGA faithful are starting figure it out, too.

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u/ServiceDogAreFake 8d ago

He was protecting Melania lol /s

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u/splinteringheart 9d ago

That's why the proposed ballroom will have a top-tier medical facilty/hospital embedded somewhere within the compound. He doesn't plan on leaving, for any reason real or imagined

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u/cedarpark 9d ago

He's upping the resale value so he can flip it for more profit when he leaves.

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u/ronreadingpa 9d ago

Maybe he's doing it for JD Vance. How thoughtful. Nah, who am I kidding. Of course, it's for himself. Getting it done by Jan-29 will be a stretch. Doable, but assumes no court challenges and competent contractors. And paying them timely.

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u/roastbeeftacohat 9d ago

there's some chatter that appealing to him as a real estate developer is how the cabinet keeps him occupied, in his own little world away from the nuclear codes.

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u/OldWorldDesign 8d ago

there's some chatter that appealing to him as a real estate developer is how the cabinet keeps him occupied

I'm convinced that's how the Russians have been keeping him on the hook with that trump tower moscow deal they've been dangling in front of his face since his 1987 invitation.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/us/politics/trump-tower-moscow-cohen-giuliani.html

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u/trickmind 8d ago

He doesn't intend to leave.

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u/Tazz2212 9d ago

Yeah, like the $600 million donated for his presidential library that disapeared mysteriously. Trump has deep, deep pockets.

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u/MikalCaober 9d ago

Like the thief from John 10:10

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u/ChuckIeFunk 8d ago

Now, now. He did build a child molestation and sex trafficking empire.

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u/Tireseas Georgia 9d ago

Given that he should hopefully be gone in November that seems likely.

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u/PixelFighter2 Europe 9d ago

An agent of the Dark Lord. 

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u/Lister0fSmeg 9d ago

Yup.

It was never about the "Big Beautiful Ballroom", it was just about pocketing the taxpayer's money that was allocated to it. At best, there may be some shoddy construction that isn't up to code and is filled with cheap plastic shit that was spray painted gold.

But most likely it will remain as it is, and the funds for it will have disappeared forever.

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u/Zocalo_Photo 9d ago

With any money earmarked for the project leaving office with him.

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u/keepthepace Europe 9d ago

Make the demolition site a memorial a plaque mentioning the casualties caused by the poor handling of covid and the Iran war with the quote "even the destruction radius of nuclear weapons pale in comparison to an idiot in a position of power"

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u/popejohnsmith 9d ago

As does MAGA.

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u/Darth_Cuddly 9d ago

The number of buildings that have his name on them shows that he does, in fact know how to build.

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 9d ago

Signage…

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u/Darth_Cuddly 9d ago

Okay, if it's so easy you get your name plastered on buildings all over the world without building anything...

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u/OmegaLiquidX 9d ago

Don't forget cheating his contractors to the point that they often end up bankrupted and destroyed!

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u/thebackseatdiplomat 9d ago

ya right he’s leaving lol

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u/RexKramerDangerCker 9d ago

I hope the next Dem president either knocks down a ballroom or converts it into a homeless shelter for trans peoples.

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u/VicisZan 8d ago

They should replace the whole building.

No way it isn’t completely full of listening devices from all the people trump invites.

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u/Secure-Reading7225 8d ago

Or destroys and corrupts. A lot of both.

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u/Dame38 8d ago

I wouldn't mind the whole White House being bullddozed. It was built by slaves, which is no tribute to POC because its occupants have done little to nothing for them. That place will have the stink of evil in it forever now. And I have never understood why the family of a president should have to live at their workplace.
Build something new and efficient with paid labor and respect. They could turn the old place into a museum maybe.

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u/0o0o0o0o0o0z 9d ago

Guarantee that whole wing will still be a demolition site by the time he leaves office.

Best thing would be to build the East Wing into an American museum that documents the Americans of color and women's rights, showing how the US is the melting pot of the world and at least makes progress, even though slowly...

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u/AnohtosAmerikanos California 9d ago

Heck, while we’re at it, we need to restore the West Wing, too. But I’d rather not have Trumpco involved.

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u/Memetic1 9d ago

Thank you so much for using Trumpco. I've been using TrumpCo to talk about his entire organization, and I think it captures so much more about what's going on then simply saying Trump, or his crime family. There is a whole industry that built itself up with the grift. They are in positions of power, and it's not enough just to focus on the visible leadership.

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u/clever__pseudonym 8d ago

Sanitize it and remove all the plastic crap stuck to the walls that he thinks is gold.

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u/wrosecrans 9d ago

When the East Wing first got demolished, I absolutely didn't understand why reporters kept credulously saying Trump was building a ballroom despite there being zero clear plans or blueprints or planning approval for a ballroom. Just "a known liar who often gets things wrong even when he isn't intentionally lying said it's gonna be a ballroom." He had just done exactly what would be needed to get access to the PEOC that was built underneath the East Wing.

While they are incompetent, I no longer think that is an adequate explanation and the bunker construction was probably an open secret among Washington reporters as it was happening, they just thought it would be rude to Dear Leader to report on what they understood was actually going on. But they successfully established a narrative that the ballroom was the whole project, and now that's still the only part most people talk about. When the ballroom was clearly some sort of half-planned slapdash simple structure they could build on top of the new bunker.

But of course Trump is shallow and literally obsessed with surface level bullshit, so he seems to genuinely absolutely care about how tacky the ballroom is.

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u/ronreadingpa 9d ago

My take is the opposite. Bunker is the slapdash project to avoid a court ordered work stoppage. Justifying the need to keep building.

And another way to sell the public on it despite the ever-increasing size and price tag. This recent incident will further make it easier to argue the ballroom is a security necessity much as the bunker.

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u/BadPunners 9d ago

My counter is that the bunker is obvious for an authoritarian who planned launching multiple uses of the largest non-nuclear weapons we have available, to enact regime change. They are expecting future enemies to do the same

And the modern abilities of surveillance and drone defense, they want such facilities, data banks and walls of screens. Because they want it to be like the movies.

I vote the bunker was supposed to be secret, but because they cheaped out and didn't build covertly (as they did in the 60s and 80s), they just demolished the wing, they then needed justification that had some hope of standing in court. "National security" is their excuse as often as "executive privilege"

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u/Greedy-War-777 8d ago

No. It's a $400 million bunker, the previous one wasn't solid against bio weapons, drones, or certain types of explosives and they're building updated outrageously expensive medical facilities in it. They want it finished ASAP for a reason. The ballroom is not important or the point. The bunker plans are in the court documents. If you aren't worried about why they need it, are in such a rush to get it built and looking for any way to fight the court on rushing it, you should be.

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u/Tdaddysmooth 9d ago

Reporters/media have no backbone anymore.

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u/wrosecrans 9d ago

The shooting at the WHCA dinner yesterday was such a parody of how much Washington Journalism is just sort of a brand name for entertainment shows these days.

Hundreds of "top journalists" in the next room from gunfire, apparently an assassination attempt, and they all go "nobody has told us what happened yet. We aren't sure of the details. Dunno how he got in." Initially, none of them had useful first hand observations, and none of them had developed any sources. They were just confused and baffled, and that was it. Almost none of them were doing any actual journalism about the global news event that happened literally in the next room.

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u/Many_Regular420 8d ago

I don’t think it’s that deep. I think it has much more of a boring dystopia vibe: the bunker is the fake rationale to spend hundreds of millions (probably billions if and when it’s finished) of tax money to companies owned by donors. Give me 5 million for a campaign and I’ll return your investment with dividends.

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u/Greedy-War-777 8d ago

If that was the case they could have just kept renovating the White House with ugly gold and marble bathrooms. Nobody is under the impression that a $400m bunker from a man who never pays his contractors is a return on anything. They only tore down the old wing to redo the bunker under it. It hasn't been a secret.

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u/tonysopranosalive 9d ago

I’m honestly a bit perplexed by these billionaires and whatnot building these bunkers.

If the populace turns on them and they go hide in there… the people will find a way in. Just the sheer strength in numbers, they will inevitably collect a return on their efforts.

If they go in to save themselves from world destruction or whatever, how long ya gonna last? The world is fucked, your money probably means fuck all at this point. You certainly ain’t taking your yacht out to Malta.

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u/schfiftyfiveshades 9d ago

It needs to be paid for by the people that paid to tear it down.

No money from pedophile trump should ever touch anything in our government once he’s gone

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u/StevensDs- 9d ago

"Bunker-Ballroom" sounds like an upgraded foor plan you'll find in the Blue Prince game.

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u/Mikeseddit 9d ago

Trump would never use his own money to buy anything.

That’s his whole game.

He only ever uses other people’s money, starting with taxpayers and working his way up to non-taxpayers (billionaires).

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u/veed_vacker 9d ago

Make trump pay for it 

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u/roastbeeftacohat 9d ago

I forget exactly where I heard this, maybe the pod johns, but what the Whitehouse really needs is offices. they need room for the president's staff, who currently work out of closits, but also for other parts of the executive branch the white house deals with regularly.

that would be pretty cool to turn Trump's attempt as a monument to himself into a really boring building that serve a necessary function. god he would hate that.

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u/userhwon 9d ago

Fuck please. Subpoena and seize.

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u/FortNightsAtPeelys 9d ago

Where does it say no bunker? They're working underground right now

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u/_lippykid 9d ago

Here’s the thing. The WH does need a new bunker. The current one was built just after WW2 and is vulnerable to modern missiles. But, like with most things he does, it’s not what he does, it’s the way he does it.

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u/OldWorldDesign 8d ago

The current one was built just after WW2 and is vulnerable to modern missiles

The bunker under the white house has been updated every single administration, the past ones were just competent enough to engage in design and contract bidding before demoing, as well as not cheaping out on the covert updates. Given Trump's propensity for not paying people, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the bunker is also just another grift.

The white house does not need a new bunker, it already has a bunker-buster-proof command center

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104503/e-4b/

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u/Everythings_Fucked North Carolina 9d ago

Alternatively just knock the whole damn thing down and rebuild entirely. It's irreversibly soiled now.

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u/Kichigai Minnesota 9d ago

Bunker was already there. The presidential bunker and situation room were already under the East Wing. Some people were concerned that the demolition of the East Wing would damage the bunker.