An opinion columnist for The Washington Post asserted that President Donald Trump's "very big announcement" on a trade deal with Britain — which turned out to be "just the outline of a deal" — proved once again that he's really only concerned about his own business interests.
Instead of giving any real updates about when Americans could expect lower prices at the store, columnist David Milbank wrote, Trump used the announcement to talk about his golf courses in the U.K.
"We have good investments over there, beautiful,” Trump said.
"So this is why Britain went to the top of the trade-deal waiting list?" Milbank asked, adding that, "It was just the latest reminder, as if we needed one, that Trump has no permanent alliances, only personal financial interests."
Milbank's piece was published several hours before White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed it was "ridiculous" that anyone would even suggest that President Trump "is doing anything for his own benefit."
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Milbank assured the American public that they don't need to worry about the Trump family's well-being as the U.S. hurtles toward recession. As the country contends with the "Two Doll Policy" brought about by his sky-high tariffs, "Trump and his family are subjecting themselves to no such sacrifice," he wrote.
Milbank recounted Trump's "access-selling scheme" — charging up to "$20 million a pop for people to have dinner with him" — and "crypto racket" that have netted the family hundreds of millions of dollars, "some of it from foreign businesses and governments."
All this "with the added insult that tens of thousands of novice investors who are presumably his supporters have lost their shirtsbuying the Trump coins," Milbank wrote.
"The Trump family’s crypto grifting is on top of a new hotel in Dubai, a tower in Saudi Arabia, a golf course in Qatar and a club in Washington," Milbank wrote.
"But what’s striking about the second term is that he has increased both the threshold for the pain he is willing to inflict on others and the amount of his devotion to his own pleasure," the piece stated. "The world may be going to hell, but don’t worry: The president is doing well!"