Letter: Another week in the White House with Donald J. Trump

$10 billion of Venezuela’s oil revenue remains unaccounted for. Trump says the oil revenue will be “controlled by me.”

Trump’s vanity projects have now cost taxpayers $1.2 billion, and the cost of many other construction plans remains unclear. $400 million dollars spent for the Ballroom, with an additional $400 million for the Bunker, $100 million for his “Triumphal Arch”, $16 million dollars for the reflecting pool that remains unfinished, $250 million for the Kennedy Center, which he has threatened to tear down if his name is not added to it. Trump spent $2 million dollars destroying the Rose Garden. He wants to spend $7.5 million to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white. He wants to spend $40 million to create a National Garden of American Heroes and has spent $48 million on city fountains, $4 million on Gilded Statues, $17 million on Lafayette Park, and now he wants to turn his Palm Beach Golf Club into his own Camp David.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, a Trump loyalist and Trump’s appointed U.S. Ambassador to Greece, was caught sending messages to a Trump donor, Eric Deters, asking him to wire payment for her $100,000.00 American Express bill directly to American Express so it would not leave a paper trail before her Senate confirmation hearings in exchange for favors of tax, legal and media nature.

Stephen Miller has instructed ICE to increase their arrests by 1000 people/day, now making the goal of daily arrests to 3000 people/day.

Pete Hegseth formed a Pentagon study entitled “Project Meridian” made up of three men, Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey, cofounder of the defense technology company, Anduril. These three men are to study and map what is needed for future warfare. Days after “Project Meridian” was formed, Palmer Luckey, a Trump supporter, was given a no-bid $2 billion defense contract.

Pete Hegseth, a promoter of “Christian Warriors,” wants to live-stream a public execution by firing squad of a court-martialed military officer. This is what terrorist countries do, and this is explicitly against U.S. law.

A South African woman, Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, former International Criminal Court (ICC) Judge won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law. President Trump immediately placed sanctions from the U.S. against the international criminal court stating, “we don’t need the ICC”. Instead, Trump has aligned the U.S. with Putin’s Russia.

After a “very good” phone call with Putin this week, Trump said Russia is going to supply the U.S. with oil and diesel fuel. He plans to lift the U.S. sanctions against them exporting and selling their oil on the global market. Trump is basically siding with Russia now in the Ukrainian war. Trump did this while Congress is out of session. Trump is now blaming the war in Ukraine, which Russia started, on Ukraine.

Trump is still running campaign ads paid by taxpayers’ money despite a judge telling him to stop running those ads.

After Trump banned MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House, five other networks suspended media coverage of the White House in protest (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and even FOX News). Now the Department of Justice is investigating if the networks coordinating a boycott violated any antitrust laws. How about the President violating the Freedom of the Press laws?

Trump, during his Nebraska rally, clearly suggested Iran “Take Out” Los Angeles or San Diego. The White House later tried to spin his words back, saying that is not what he meant, but the video of his speech is clear.

Trump has now decided to try and buy American’s votes by sending out checks of OUR MONEY to the people he refused to renew the Affordable Care Act subsidies and to the elderly, who suffer cuts to Medicaid and to any adult so long as Republicans maintain the majority in the House and Senate after the midterms. He lies about everything, like the expected $5,000.00 checks that Americans were supposed to receive from the savings that DOGE supposedly made. Lies, lies, lies and more lies.

Just one more week in Trump’s White House. How much more can this country take?

Joan Melton
Celestine