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WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump had something urgent to address while flying back to Washington from his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate on a recent Sunday.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the Iran war, nor the still-going partial government shutdown over Department of Homeland Security funding. He wanted to talk about a monumental issue of a different kind, hoisting up large artist renderings of the $400 million White House ballroom he\u2019s building, complete with hand-carved \u201ctop-of-the-line\u201d Corinthian columns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so busy that I don\u2019t have time to do this. I\u2019m fighting wars and other things,\u201d Trump said before extensively detailing plans for \u201cthe greatest ballroom anywhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
His divided attention has become a Democratic point of attack and a concern for some Republicans who worry he\u2019s not spending enough time on issues that voters care most about ahead of November\u2019s midterm races.<\/p>\n
The contrast was on full display Thursday, when, as Trump flew to Las Vegas to discuss tax cuts for Americans earning tips, his administration was pushing ahead with plans to build a 250-foot Triumphal Arch near the Lincoln Memorial replete with a Lady Liberty-like statue and a pair of golden eagles.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s ability to speak to the concerns of working people has always seemed incongruous with his biography as a billionaire real estate developer. Yet his populist policies and emphasis on the economy during his 2024 campaign helped catapult him back to the White House.<\/p>\n
Republican strategist Rick Tyler noted that, when Trump first ran for president in 2016, his wealth was a selling point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile other people, like Mitt Romney, played down how rich he was, Trump was giving free helicopter rides at the Iowa State Fair,\u201d Tyler said. \u201cPeople loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Trump\u2019s preoccupation with some of the gilded trappings of the presidency, as more Americans worry about bills, has drawn accusations that he\u2019s a modern-day Marie Antoinette.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Fighting wars\u2019 and surging gas prices, yet Trump has time to brag about his billionaire backed ballroom,\u201d Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, responded on X to Trump\u2019s Air Force One presentation.<\/p>\n
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, has been more direct in comparing Trump to the last queen before the French Revolution, who has come to embody extravagant opulence \u2014 even posting an AI-generated image of Trump’s face on her body on social media.<\/p>\n
“TRUMP \u2018MARIE ANTOINETTE\u2019 SAYS, \u2018NO HEALTH CARE FOR YOU PEASANTS, BUT A BALLROOM FOR THE QUEEN!\u2019 Newsom wrote in October 2025, at the start of a 43-day government shutdown.<\/p>\n
Asked about opponents invoking Marie Antoinette, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump \u201cis going to go down in history as the most successful and consequential president in our lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHis successes on behalf of the American people will be imprinted upon the fabric of America and will be felt by every other White House that comes after him,” Ingle said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The president faced similar critiques during his first term. But lately he’s been unabashed about accusations he\u2019s disconnected from Americans’ worries about high costs, which could leave Republicans with an uphill battle to retain control of Congress.<\/p>\n
About two-thirds of Americans said Trump is \u201cout of touch\u201d with the concerns of most people in the United States today, according to an ABC News\/Washington Post\/Ipsos poll from February, though the same percentage said the same about the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
Presidents are usually removed from voters, separated by layers of security and surrounded by adoring subordinates. In her book \u201cWhy Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again,\u201d Elaine Kamarck argues that presidents get too focused on their own political narratives rather than the public’s concerns. Yet, when it comes to Trump, \u201cAll of this stuff is frankly unique to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
She pointed to the ballroom as well as Trump’s other White House renovations, soon adding his signature to paper currency, and renaming the Kennedy Center after himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a reflection, I think, of his own background as a businessman and somebody who made his fortune selling his name,” said Kamarck, who worked in Bill Clinton\u2019s White House.<\/p>\n
While Trump focuses on the ballroom and other Washington projects, some public work projects in other parts of the country have languished.<\/p>\n
Joe Meyer, the former mayor of Covington, Kentucky, spent years pushing for critical improvements to the Brent Spence Bridge connecting his town with Cincinnati, a project listed as a top federal priority dating back to Trump’s first administration.<\/p>\n
Federal funds for improvements were approved under President Joe Biden but held up by a Trump-ordered review. Work is now finally set to begin later this year, though delays will likely limit design options and slow the project, Meyer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ballroom is Washington inside-baseball,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cThe bridge is just a wreck. It\u2019s frustration that we\u2019ve been dealing with forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trumpeting new tax deductions for tips, Trump staged ordering McDonald’s to the Oval Office \u2014 which he has crammed with gold flourishes \u2014 and tipped the grandmother making the delivery $100. When she described large medical bills from her husband\u2019s cancer treatments, Trump said she should bring him to an upcoming UFC fight on the White House lawn.<\/p>\n
When hundreds of farmers were invited to the White House for an agricultural policy speech, they stood on the South Lawn beside a tractor that had been painted gold. It drizzled, but Trump stayed dry, addressing them from a covered second-floor balcony.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t mind rain,\u201d the president told the farmers below.<\/p>\n
He then flew to Miami for a conference of Saudi investors who, the president noted, were too rich to be impressed by U.S. families scrounging to save up $5,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they\u2019re looking like, \u2018What the hell is $5,000?\u2019” Trump joked. “Their shoes cost them more than $5,000.”<\/p>\n
When asked in February, meanwhile, for his message to young people wanting to buy a home, Trump replied: \u201cSave a little longer. Wait a little longer.”<\/p>\n
Members of the Cabinet have also fed the perception that Trump’s promised \u201c Golden Age \u201d may not be arriving for everyone. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. advised Americans to buy liver instead of beef.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you go and buy a steak, it\u2019s still pretty expensive. But if you buy the cheaper cuts, it\u2019s great meat. And it is very, very affordable. Or liver, or, you know, all these alternatives,\u201d he told podcast host Joe Rogan.<\/p>\n
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said people could still afford meals consisting of \u201ca piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla and one other thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House has sought to show that Trump is attuned to voter concerns by sending the president to politically competitive parts of the country to trumpet his efforts to lower costs. But Trump has stepped on the message by insisting that affordability concerns are a Democratic \u201choax.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas-based Republican consultant Brendan Steinhauser said he thinks that Trump \u201ccan kind of get away with” building a ballroom because voters have come to expect that from him as a brash dealmaker and businessman.<\/p>\n
But Steinhauser said he worries that dramatic increases in gas prices and a potentially weakening economy could resonate with voters. Ahead of the midterms, Steinhauser said, Democrats could score points \u201ctrying to make it more about Trump and his oligarch friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writers Linley Sanders in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n