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This week, an important relic of Donald Trump's career imploded.

The implosion was literal, not figurative. City officials ordered the implosion of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, which has been derelict since the business closed in 2014.

When it was first built in 1984, the 32-story casino was a great symbol of Mr Trump's ambitions in the world of casinos, showbusiness and events.

But by the early 1990s, the Trump Plaza casino business was $US500 million ($641) in debt.

It's not the only part of his former life that has been destroyed since he decided to run for president six years ago.

His years as New York real estate tycoon and star of reality television, welcomed by elites to high society events, appear to be over.

Watching the old casino collapse, I have been wondering: if he had the chance, would he do it all again?

For many observers of Mr Trump's presidency, the answer is obviously "yes".

But look at the effect his five-year foray into national politics has had on him and it becomes a more interesting question.

Mr Trump, heir to a New York property empire built up by his father, lived a strange but comfortable life.

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Despite his relentless criticism of then-president Barack Obama and attachment to racist conspiracy theories about the first black president's birthplace, he was so central to New York culture that he was welcomed at every high society event.

He hosted a top-rating TV show, he performed songs at the Emmys and he hosted Saturday Night Live.

He and wife Melania Trump walked the red carpet at the Met Gala and White House Correspondents Dinner.

While his business was losing money, had he unloaded a couple of his least profitable golf courses, he had the ability to turn that around.

He could, probably, have sold his entire property empire and been better off financially.

The Apprentice, along with his new business licencing his name to products and property developments around the world, was earning him around $20 million a year.

If he had remained a private citizen, he could have found himself sitting pretty in 2021 calling into right-wing radio and TV stations at will to voice his criticism of the Clinton administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite his insistence that his political movement has "only just begun", the final 12 months of his presidency has meant it will struggle to find more support than it currently holds.

His handling of the pandemic will only look more appalling in contrast to the coming year as the vaccination program begins to control the horrific death toll the virus has wrought on the United States.

His refusal to accept the results of the election led not only to him becoming the first president ever to be impeached twice, but the rise of a new zeal among establishment Republicans to stand up to him.

Mitt Romney, the one Republican senator who voted to convict Trump in his 2020 impeachment trial, was joined by six of his colleagues in 2021.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the most powerful figure among Congressional Republicans, implied that the former president may be criminally indicted for his actions leading up to the Capitol riot.

Beyond that, other trouble looms. Investigations in Washington DC and New York into the Trump family's business dealings may lead to costly court cases, criminal indictments, or monetary fines.

His decision not to attempt to pardon himself leaves him open to federal charges of campaign finance violations or obstruction of justice stemming from the Mueller investigation.

Additionally, the tax audit he has always used as an excuse for delaying the release of his tax returns continues. Massive debts to unknown creditors are coming due.

Even without any of those threats, his ability to market his name for cash has been diminished by his presidency, with licensing deals all but drying up.

He is so unwelcome in New York that he has permanently relocated to Florida. His socialite daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner have followed.

His continued insistence that a massive conspiracy involving large voting machine companies was responsible for the 2020 election result has even led him to clash with his former media ally, Fox News.

The supporter base he cultivated is now all he has left.

His rejection of democratic principles and refusal to concede led to a permanent ban on his social media accounts, damaging his prospects of success in any future political campaigns.

If even part of this is true, then even Mr Trump would likely agree that if he had his time again, he would not decide to run for president.

There is a version of 2021 where indictments never materialise, the tax audit disappears, the creditors wipe off their debts and New York high society welcomes him back.

Part of that relies on how his relationship proceeds with his own party.

While he has made it clear that he now has no relationship with Mr McConnell, his connection with Fox News is already on the mend. He spoke at length with them on Wednesday about the death of right-wing radio shock jock Rush Limbaugh.

His allies in the Senate are also still with him, with Senator Lindsey Graham describing the future of the Republican Party as "Trump Plus".

The other big contributor to how Mr Trump's life pans out from here is President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats.

In the Senate impeachment trial, we have seen shadows of a Democratic desire to move past Trump quickly.

Despite holding almost every lever of control, they held a quick trial, with no witnesses reportedly fearful that anything else would ruin President Biden's chances of bipartisan support on coronavirus recovery legislation.

For Democrats, Mr Trump's time in office can either be viewed as an aberration to hopefully get past quickly and forget, or the canary in the coalmine screaming about fundamental flaws in America's political system.

During the impeachment trial, Democrats indicated they were inclined towards the former. The importance of the trial was primarily in making sure Mr Trump individually could never become president again.

But if you look at this as an indication of the inability of the American system to resist a charismatic populist with authoritarian tendencies, the threat is not Mr Trump, but a future equivalent who is more capable of capitalising on the tremendous power and opportunities Mr Trump gained, then squandered.

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The implosion of Donald Trump's old casino made me wonder whether he would do it all again - ABC News

Mitch McConnell, who loathes Trump, thought he was being Solomon-like, rejecting impeachment on a silly technicality, then declaiming on the Senate floor that Trumps lies led to the Capitol riot.

But to his surprise and dismay, McConnell who sees himself as the great protector of the Senate garnered jeers for his hypocrisy, not praise for his courage. After Merrick Garland, everyone knew McConnell could do what he wanted on the Senate floor; he was not bound by mundane procedural matters.

By coddling Trump on his election fakery, the Republicans gave it so much oxygen, it led to tragedy.

Trump, the supreme ingrate, wasnt grateful for McConnells nay vote. He promptly composed a masterpiece of spleen, a statement threatening to primary Mitchs candidates and calling him a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack who lacks political wisdom, skill and personality. Trump wanted to pile on the bile with a snippy line about McConnell having too many chins and not enough smarts, but shelved it.

McConnell should be an object of scorn. Trump could not have done anything without him. Each used the other for his own purposes. Trumps achievements for conservatives, refashioning the Supreme Court and getting a tax cut, were really McConnells.

Former Guy, as President Biden called Trump, then turned his choler on Nikki Haley, who revved up for 2024 by telling Politico that Republicans should take the good Trump built and jettison the bad. Nikki, Nikki, Nikki. You thought youd get a Mar-a-Lago audience after that?

Ted Cruzs truckling may be the most jarring, given Trumps attacks on Cruzs wife and father in the 2016 campaign. But Ive always said the story of Washington should be titled Smart People Doing Dumb Things. Cruz wouldnt even study with people from what he called minor Ivies while at Harvard Law School but didnt think twice before leaving Texans starving, freezing and dying to go catch some rays in Cancun and then blaming his daughters.

Well see if Trump can sustain this king-in-exile routine without the infrastructure he once had. Consider his asinine election challenge with all those crazy lawyers. Ever the shrew, all he has left now is his forked tongue.

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Opinion | Donald Trump, the Untamable Shrew - The New York Times

Steve Bannon said he thought Donald Trump had dementia and launched a covert plan to remove him as president through the 25th Amendment, according to a new book by the veteran TV producer Isa Rosen.

Rosen shared the revelation while discussing his memoir based on his work on CBS' iconic news show 60 Minutes called Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes,' on Skullduggery,a Yahoo News podcast.

In the memoir, released this week, he wrote that Bannon believed Trump "was suffering from early-stage dementia and that there was a real possibility he would be removed from office by the 25th Amendment."

The 25th Amendment exists for when the president is incapable of carrying out his duties.

Bannon, a former Executive Chairman of the hard-right Breitbart News, was Chief Executive Officer of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. He served as White House Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President until Trump fired him in 2017, less than seven months after the inauguration.

Rosen told podcast hosts Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman that Trump "turned on Bannon" after he appeared on a Time magazine cover in February 2017, weeks after the president was sworn in.

Calling it a"conspiracy" in his book, the award-winning TV producer added: "Bannon realized that Trump was repeating the same stories over and over again and Bannon kept saying this and he wanted to do something about it."

Bannon even visited Republican super donor Robert Mercer's home and tried to recruit him to the plot, said Rosen.

"Now, the secret was that Bannon crazily thought that he could be president," said Rosen."He would have been very happy to see Trump disappear from the scenes, either through the 25th Amendment, resigning for whatever reason, and he would step in and fill the gulf and carry the mantle of the Trump followers. But he was delusional about it."

Rosen also includes a text that Bannon sent him in his book, which reads: "You need to do the 25th Amendment piece... BTW brother I never steer u wrong."

Rosen told Skullduggery that Bannon was a "big talker" and a gossip. He would often drop in for casual chats at the White House and said he had a "therapist" role with Bannon. He described, "loitering in the chief of staff's office, drinking Diet Cokes and he would kind of download to me on stories."

Bannon's tenure came to an abrupt end following reports of power struggles with Jared Kushner, Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law, as well as various other high-level White House staffers.

Trump had also become tired of him constantly taking credit for winning the election and their relationship fractured.

Bannon responded to Rosen's claims himself during his own 'War Room' podcast. He said: "This is another reporter trying to be a grifter and... complete, total fantasy."

He did hint of White Hosue whispers about invoking the 25th Amendment, implicating other former senior members of the Trump administration.

"If you want to find out whoever said about the 25th Amendment go and talk to "anonymous" and talk about John Kelly (the White House chief of staff from 2017-2019) and talk to Jim Mattis (the secretary of defense 2017-2018) and talk to the cabinet members," said Bannon.

Bannon and Trump have since patched up their differences. The former President pardoned Bannonjust days before leaving office after he was charged with defrauding Trump's political supporters amid a private effort to build a Mexican border wall.

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Steve Bannon believed Trump had dementia and plotted to remove him as president, according to new book - Business Insider

Rush Limbaughs death this week, at seventy, of lung cancer, closes the book on more than a quarter century of conservative media defined by Limbaugh and his friend Roger Ailes, the Fox News chairman and C.E.O., who died in 2017. Before Donald Trumps entry into Republican politics, and even before Fox began dominating the cable airwaves, in the late nineties, Limbaugh had an unparalleled ability to rile up the Republican base and move the Party closer to his vision of pure Reaganism. That vision consisted of lower taxes and less regulation, opposition to abortion, and an aggressive posture abroadthe so-called three-legged stool of the Ronald Reagan coalition. For decades, this was Limbaughs mantra, with an emphasis on tax cuts. But his embrace of Trump in his final years, and his willingness to subsume his conservatism into the cult of one man, offered a different view of Limbaugh. He finished his career less as a leader of the Republican Party than as simply another Trump follower.

Limbaugh, who was born to a prominent Missouri Republican family, began his broadcast career in his teens, and landed a spot on Sacramento radio, in 1984. Four years later, The Rush Limbaugh Show went national, beaming from New Yorks WABC. (It remained his flagship station for most of his career, although Limbaugh eventually moved to Florida.) Averse to taking callersthat was often reserved for FridaysLimbaugh had a remarkable ability to sustain a monologue, with only the commercials as breaks, for virtually the full three hours that his show aired each day. (Trumps ability to command the microphone for an astonishing amount of time is the only comparable example I can think of, but Limbaugh, unlike the former President, could stay remarkably focussed.) He would often start a show by informing his listeners about his stack of clippingsusually news articles and alertsand find ways to connect them to some overarching point he wanted to make, which often had to do with the magical effects of tax cuts on the economy, and the wastefulness of the federal government. If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representations was bad, he should see how it is with representation, he once said.

As he got older and richer, he was fond of half-jokingly talking about his wealth and success. He boasted of talent on loan from God, and once stated, I cant even destroy myself. Ive tried a couple times myself and it doesnt work. Im literally indestructible. Like Trump, who enjoys informing audiences about his Ivy League education and telling them that he has better things to do than come to their rallies, Limbaugh relished the fact that those vaunted tax cuts he always talked up were going to people like himself.

An endless stream of articles and books over the past five years have wrestled with the question of how Trump was able to pull off his particular act, appealing to audiences that didnt attend any college, let alone one in the Ivy League. Limbaughs success offers a clue. His radio program was home to Club for Growth bromides about the beauty of the private sector, but it also had another side, which consisted largely of bigotry. This was a man who featured a segment called AIDS Updates, in which he mockingly read the names of victims of the disease to the sounds of Dionne Warwick. He said that feminism was invented to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society. He uttered too many racist comments to count, but displayed a special hostility toward Barack Obama. In Obamas America, the white kids now get beat up with the Black kids cheering, he once said.

Limbaugh, like Trump, never seemed particularly passionate about conservative Christian causes. He took the right positions on abortion and gay marriage, but had an early insight that to much of his audience cultural grievances mattered more. One can argue that mocking AIDS victims and coming out strongly against gay marriage are both forms of bigotry. But many people who have unsavory political views do not make a habitor a careerout of personal cruelty. In a Limbaugh monologue from 2013 on gay marriage, he stated, A lot of people have no personal animus against gay people at all. Its, instead, a, um, genuine, I dont know, love, respect, for the things they believe define this country as great. He wasnt describing himself, and you could tell his heart wasnt in it. Compare that to comments such as There are a bunch of really crafty guys out there who probably, in the normal course of events, cant get women to look at em. And theyve decided, you know what? Im gonna go be tranny. The conviction was in the vitriol.

And yet, as much as Limbaugh was willing to lie to his audience about the details of Obamacarehe even claimed it would increase the divorce ratehe did seem to have a kernel of principle in his fealty to low taxes, less regulation, and free markets. Thus, Limbaugh could have viewed the rise of Trump in two ways. One would have been to say that here was someone who didnt care at all about movement conservatism; who probably only dimly knew who William F. Buckley, Jr., was; who broke with right-wing orthodoxy on trade and tariffs; and who had no vision of capitalism beyond its usefulness in making him richer and more famous. The other way was to view Trump as someone who had the same catalogue of resentments as Limbaugh did, andperhaps more importantlywas hated by the same people.

Limbaugh didnt wait long before making his decision: he was all in. By early 2016, he was defending Trump daily, and, perhaps more significantly, striking the same rhetorical tones. The Republican Party doesnt like the Republican base, he said, in January of that year, explaining that litism was the establishments reason for opposing Trump. If Trumps takeover of the G.O.P. revealed the degree to which cultural resentment mattered more to conservative voters than any single issue, Limbaughs journey served as an exemplar of this fact. When Trump took a stance that Limbaugh would have once objected tosuch as imposing new tariffsLimbaugh simply changed his opinion and backed Trump.

Limbaughs appeasement, or worse, of Trump raises the question of how much control he ever wielded in the Party. Limbaughs influence was at times overstated. His favored candidates did not necessarily win primarieswitness his failure to derail John McCain, in 2008and his ability to steer voters was probably always less than what was assumed. But if he didnt always have direct power, his role in laying the cultural groundwork for Trump cannot be understated. The Republicans never became the vehicle of pure economic libertarianism and fealty to conservative ideas that Limbaugh may have once hoped, but they did become a party that Limbaugh could love.

Originally posted here:
How Rush Limbaugh Invented Donald Trump - The New Yorker

Outgoing President Donald Trump waves farewell as he boards Marine One at the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2021.

Donald Trump never donated to his own reelection campaign, but he did find plenty of other billionaires willing to write him checks. In total, Forbes identified 133 superrich donors who pitched in for Trumps 2020 campaign.

Trumps tycoons, who collectively make up about 14% of all American billionaires, tend to fall into a few specific categories. Several were longtime Republican mega-donors, like gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, who died in January, and his wife, Miriam. Others knew Trump from their days in business, including Texas banker Andy Beal and casino king Phil Ruffin. About one quarter of them made their money in finance and investments, more than any other industry. About 10% got rich in real estate, while roughly the same number earned a fortune from the energy sector. Most of them came from three states: New York (19%), Texas (19%) and Florida (13%).

Sources: Federal Election Commission filings; Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list.

Some clearly benefited from having a friend in the White House. Miriam Adelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, got clearance for his Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as a seat on the board of trustees at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Harold Hamm, the oil baron, became an informal advisor. Linda McMahon, who is married to WWE Chief Executive Vince McMahon, accepted a role as head of the Small Business Administration, before moving on to chair a pro-Trump super-PAC named America First Action.

On average, the donors contributed about $285,000 to the Trump campaign and its joint-fundraising committees, which split their hauls with the Republican Party. About 9% of Trumps billionaire donors, however, gave less than $5,000. At least 19 also donated to pro-Trump super-PACs. Unlike other types of political committees, super-PACs can accept unlimited amounts of money. The Adelsons, for instance, gave $90 million to a pro-Trump super-PAC called Preserve America. Marvel Entertainment billionaire Isaac Perlmutter and his wife, Laura, gave $21 million to America First. Kelcy Warren donated $10 million to the same group.

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Here Are The Billionaires Who Donated To Donald Trump's 2020 Presidential Campaign - Forbes