President Donald Trump will be the first to say he is not easily impressed.
He likes to boast that he has transformed the Oval Office. Like the gilded hotels he has built in his name, it is a very public testament to his love of gold.
But even Trump has been lost for words to describe the moneyed splendor his hosts have displayed in his honor during his four-day trip to the Middle East.
With his harem of White House acolytes—Hegseth, Leavitt et al—the U.S. president has been offered an intriguing insight into what absolute, unquestioned, undemocratic power looks like.
And you’d better believe he wants it.
It’s like he went to sleep on Air Force One and woke up in Trump heaven.
He couldn’t get over the huge swathes of marble in Saudi Arabia as he buddied around with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud. There was more white marble in Qatar. “The job you’ve done is second to none,” he gushed to the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. “You look at this, it’s so beautiful. As a construction person, I’m seeing perfect marble. This is what they call perfecto.”
And this was just the Emir’s administrative offices. Trump was keen to thank his hosts for the camel greeting they laid on for him.
Later, arriving for dinner at the Lusail Palace, he stopped in his tracks, stunned at the opulence.
“This is a home,” he said. “This is a serious home.”
The doors were all solid gold. The Qatar royals ushered Trump through. The significance was unmistakable.
Trump said he’d never seen anything like it, meaning the palatial home, not the camel meat on the menu. He might have been hoping it wasn’t the same camels that welcomed him earlier, but it seemed he was still struck by his surroundings.
Spreading his arms out, he looked around and declared, “Nice house! Nice house!”
The Emir was there to see Trump off the next morning with “YMCA” blasting from the speakers. Nothing was being left to chance.
At the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque in the United Arab Emirates, Trump walked spellbound through a colonnade of delicate arches and white pillars with gold and flower accents, a massive chandelier hanging from the dome, and enough carpet to decorate ten Mar-a-Lagos. He was shown through a golden arch that McDonald’s can only dream about.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” said Trump, standing in his socks with UAE President and ruler of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Khaled Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. “It is so beautiful. I am very proud of my friends.
“This is a beautiful culture.”
He barely noticed the young women shaking their hair in a traditional ceremony as he arrived for his final stop on the four-day tour. His mind was still on the real estate.
Sitting next to the sheikh for a press briefing a few hours later, a giant, gold-framed picture of his host’s father, the late Sheikh Zayed, dominated the wall behind them.
You can be sure that Trump noticed that. Autocrats like to remind their public what they look like. In Trump’s case, that would be Donald. Not his father, Fred.
They also gave him a huge (gold) medal. Autocrats like those, too.
The president has made no secret of his desire to upgrade the White House. He’s been talking for years about building a ballroom. What he would give now to replace the timeworn elegance with halls of “perfecto” marble.
But the palaces are not the only thing the green-eyed president envies in these temples of boom. Here, the gilt has no guilt.
Saudi Arabia is, indeed, home to the holiest city in Islam, but the oil-rich region is a mecca to money and the oceans of marble and gold and the magic carpets are supposed to show the world that the royal rulers can do what they want.
And this is what Donald Trump truly covets.
No pesky opposition with their insults, their impeachments, and indictments. No press with awkward questions and ingratitude. No judges quoting the Founding Fathers. No need to grovel for votes.
Absolute power.
In 100 days of shock and awe in Washington, Trump flexed his muscles and discovered that habits die hard in what was one of the world’s most enduring democracies.
He brought his most trusted Cabinet members along with him to the Middle East. His hobbled Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, whipping boy Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, shouter-in-chief Stephen Miller, Head of Insults Steven Cheung, Trump Whisperer Scott Bessent, Special Envoy for Golf Courses Steve Witkoff, and the World’s Most Powerful Woman, Susie Wiles, were all there, along with Press Gang Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Secretary of State, “Little” Marco Rubio, the grown-up who is actually supposed to be on this kind of thing, came on a separate plane.
Most of them had no obvious reason to be there. Other than, perhaps, to see how it’s done.
Trump also invited a slice of America’s biggest dealmakers. Elon Musk was there, of course, with his frenemy Sam Altman. Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Jane Fraser from Citicorp, and a series of powerhouse CEOs from Amazon, Palantir, Google, Boeing, IBM, and many others. They were all in Saudi at the behest of Trump.
He wants them all to know that this is where he sees America’s future. Not in the hidebound countries of Europe, behind the great wall of China, the unpredictabilities of India and Africa or yesterday’s Kremlin.
He greeted every Arab leader as an old friend and spoke in trillions rather than billions. Millions are so last year.
These desert kingdoms are Trump’s model. In past years, the Arab rulers would have looked to America for a lead. Now America is looking to them.
The money has been there for a long time, ever since oil was discovered below the sand. The human rights abuses towards women and LGBTQ communities, in particular, have always made the royal rulers unpalatable, even as the deals were done.
In Trump’s world, that is no longer a barrier. His administration is following similar paths toward controlling the media and demonizing minorities.
Those close to Trump say there are two subjects closest to his heart: airplanes and real estate.
The idea that Qatar would “gift” a $400 million Air Force One jumbo jet to the president may have shocked and astonished those who believed in America’s lasting role as an arbiter of the world’s morality.
But observing the naked greed on the face of the U.S. president in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE this week, it seems that may just be the beginning.
Before it was first called the White House in 1811, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was known as the “president’s palace.”
Don’t be surprised if Trump revives the name. And sits inside as King.
