'Human wrecking ball' Trump wrecking more than White House scenery: critic

09 August

U.S. President Donald Trump stands next to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev (not pictured) at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 8, 2025. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd says Trump is imposing his “garish” rococo gold tastes upon more than just the local décor.

“Trump has long been a human wrecking ball, but now his chaos has splattered onto the usually serene White House,” said Dowd. “He’s obsessively terraforming the place to be an extension of his attention-crazed id.”

Dowd describes Trump’s recent makeover of the Kennedy Rose Garden as the “Brutalist Rose Garden renovation” consisting of “a stone slab with Florida-esque patio furniture.”

“Trump is trying to turn the people’s house into a Saudi palace — ‘dictator chic,’” said Dowd. “It is symbolic of this president: He’s refashioning our democracy as an autocracy.”

Consider Trump making the Justice Department “a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Inc.” by “turning the F.B.I. into his personal, political police force, pursuing his foes with a Javert-like fever,” said Dowd.

Trump’s justice department is investigating prosecutor Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and another of his federal agencies is investigating former special counsel Jack Smith, who was charged with overseeing two criminal cases against Trump.

“Trump sent his former lawyer, now deputy attorney general, to interview [convicted sex-trafficker] Ghislaine Maxwell, who was then summarily transferred to Club Fed amid whispers of a possible pardon,” adds Dowd. “Brian Driscoll, who briefly served as acting head of the F.B.I., was dismissed because he tried to protect agents from Trump’s purge of anyone involved in investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.”

Meanwhile, Dowd points out that Trump named Jan. 6 rioter Jared Wise, who egged on a mob to “kill” the police, as an adviser to the Justice Department task force “seeking vengeance against Trump’s perceived political foes.”

And “Trump slapped Brazil with a 50 percent tariff because the government is prosecuting his far-right buddy Jair Bolsonaro, known as ‘the Trump of the tropics,’ for trying to overturn the election he lost,” Dowd said.

The president’s unbridled gilt reflects his unbridled greed, said Dowd. And she is not the only critic to drag both.

“In one year, we’ll celebrate 250 years of independence from a mad king,” political consultant David Axelrod said, according to Dowd. “Would you not give anything to invite Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln back to comment on what they’re seeing? It’s blasphemous.”

Read the full New York Times column at this link.

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