Ex-ethics chief scalds Trump and his Cabinet secretaries for ‘living like French nobles before the revolution’

Speaking with "New Day" host Alisyn Camerota on Friday morning, former Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub said the lavish lifestyles of Trump administration officials on the public dime is a direct result of Trump's near-weekly trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Addressing HUD Secretary Ben Carson's plan to purchase a $31,000 dining room set, host Camerota asked, "On what planet is that okay? I mean his budget was $5,000 for the entire office."

"This is the tone from the top I was worried about," Shaub -- who resigned from his position under Trump -- explained. "I said in my speech back in January, before the inauguration, I sounded the warning that tone for the top was going to have an effect on his top officials and will trickle down."

"So you've got the president spending tons of money going to Mar-a-Lago almost every weekend," he continued. "And following that example, you've got other cabinet officials flying around on luxury chartered jets, or other kinds of expenses like coins with Interior Secretary Zinke's name or the code of silence that Pruitt has installed at the EPA, straight out of Maxwell Smart."

"Now you've got Ben Carson taking his turn, living like a French noble before the revolution," he added. "I think these guys think they were chosen to be French nobles before the revolution."

Watch the video below uploaded to Twitter by CNN:

Former Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub says HUD Sec. Ben Carson's $31,000 dining room set order shows the "tone from the top," cites President Trump's frequent trips to Mar-a-Lago as proof https://t.co/xbXT7VnI66https://t.co/AgxSW4jtY1

— New Day (@NewDay) March 2, 2018