In 2025, President Donald Trump's makeover of the White House has taken on two different forms: (1) tearing down the historic East Wing to make way for a lavish new ballroom, and (2) redecorating parts of the West Wing in a distinctly Trumpian fashion.

The New York Times' Sam Sifton, in a newsletter published on Christmas Eve Day 2025, describes Trump's Oval Office makeover — which, the reporter notes, is so extensive that "he's almost out of wall space."

"He has made it an extravagant room," Sifton observes. "Gold is everywhere: on picture frames and gilded carvings, on seals and antiques and finials. The metal covers about a third of the walls…. Flags are abundant. There are five times as many as most other presidents displayed. A gold-framed copy of the Declaration of Independence hangs to the right of the Resolute Desk."

Sifton's newsletter is accompanied by two photos from the Times' Doug Mills — one showing Joe Biden in the Oval Office during his presidency, the other showing the Oval Office since Trump's return to the White House. And the latter has a lot more gold, which Sifton notes, is "a metaphor the president uses to telegraph his success."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Times, "He's a maximalist."

Some Trump critics, however, are alleging that the gold in the Oval Office may not be real gold.

Sifton explains, "All the gold — on those mirrors, on the frames of the portraits beside them, in the inlaid seal on the coffee table — has led to rumors that they're just cheap plastic, painted gold. Trump denies it, and a White House official told The Times that while the underlying materials are made of plaster or metal, they are covered in real gold leaf. I dug this detail: A craftsman from Florida regularly travels to the White House to gild parts of the Oval Office by hand, often when the president is away on weekends."

Read Sam Sifton's full New York Times newsletter is available at this link (subscription required).

More critics in the technology space have begun to get their hands on one of President Donald Trump and his family's biggest scams, the "Trump phone," and their reactions have been brutal so far, with some tarring the cheap device as "awful" and "deeply unserious."

First launched over a year ago, Trump Mobile was an initiative launched by The Trump Organization, claiming that it would be able to sell an affordable-yet-premium smartphone, the "T1," made entirely in the U.S., in keeping with the president's aggressive anti-imports agenda. In the months since then, the idea has appeared to devolve rapidly, with the design going from the one initially shown, looking like an all-gold iPhone, to the version that is now being sent to the press, which is an old HTC model with cheap plastic parts painted gold. The packaging also touts that it is merely "assembled" in the U.S., suggesting that the parts were made overseas.

Despite around 600,000 customers placing a deposit, phones have yet to actually ship to customers. Finished models have, however, gradually made their way into the hands of mobile reviewers, and the results have been rough.

In a video for Android Authority, reviewer C. Scott Brown said that, while the phone was not as bad as he had anticipated, it was still "awful, and not worth your money." Throughout the video, Brown further trashed the phone for its "gaudy" faux-gold look, which he noted actually looks "mustard yellow" most of the time; its "very, very cheap" plastic shell; its "dated" curved screen; and its main chipset, which was first released back in 2023 and "was pretty mediocre even back then." The phone also notably comes with Truth Social preinstalled.

In another video, this time for The Verge, reviewer Dominic Preston summed up the T1 as "deeply unserious" as far as modern smartphones are concerned. This tacky ethos, he explained, was evident in the "T1" watermark included in the corner of every picture taken with the phone right out of the box, a setting that users must manually turn off. Preston also touched on the fact that the phone is a reskinned HTC model, making it "dated right out of the gate." None of its features or specifications were "notable or novel, or even impressive for a $500 phone," either.

"The most important thing here is actually that I don't trust Trump Mobile to support this phone in any meaningful, ongoing way," Preston concluded. "I don't know if this phone will ever be updated to Android 16, let alone 17 or future versions we haven't seen yet. I don't even know if it's going to get security patches. There's a real risk that anyone who buys this phone will have an out-of-date, insecure device within months, not years."

He added: "This is not a real phone. And we don't have to treat it like one anymore."

A report published Friday reveals how President Donald Trump’s policies have jacked up prices for a host of potential Father’s Day gifts this year.

Overall, the analysis by Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic think tank and advocacy group, finds that prices for popular Father’s Day gifts have risen by nearly 19% on average over the last year, highlighted by a 30% increase in the price of Remington electric shavers, a 16% jump for Blackstone electric griddles, and a barbecue tools up by 11%.

The analysis traces price increases of popular personal care products to Trump’s global trade war, which he began last year with his “Liberation Day” tariffs levied on practically every nation in the world.

“Many shavers and trimmers are imported from China, which has faced multiple layers of tariffs,” notes the report, “in addition to containing steel and aluminum components, which are also subject to additional tariffs.”

The report also points out that electric shaver manufacturer Braun “increased the price of its Series 9 All-in-One Beard Trimmer by $50” last year after Trump’s big tariff announcement, and that the price has since gone up by another $10.

Examining the increase in grilling product prices, the report pins the blame not only on Trump’s tariffs, but also his illegal war of choice with Iran.

“The Middle East is a major producer of the petrochemical used to make plastics and synthetic fibers,” the report explains. “Trump’s reckless war on Iran has increased the price of these petroleum-derived products, helping drive up the cost of items like grilling tools, which cost nearly 22% more this year.”

Elizabeth Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, summarized the report’s findings by warning that “Dads are in for disappointment this Father’s Day” thanks to Trump’s economic policies.

“While dads across the country should be able to relax and enjoy the day with loved ones,” Pancotti added, “they’re instead forced to worry about how they’ll make ends meet in Trump’s economy.”

Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war have sent inflation in the US to its highest levels in three years. As data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) last week showed, overall prices in May posted a yearly increase of 4.2%, highlighted by a 23.5% yearly increase in energy prices.

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said last week that inflation has now grown “so high that it’s erasing all wage gains” being made by American workers.

Bulwark founder Sarah Longwell conducts frequent surveys with Trump supporters. And her latest reveals many of Trump’s 2024 fans are giving him a low-C grade for his first year.

The survey suggests Trump voters are not ready to admit their mistakes, but critics say a low-average score may not be enough to get Republicans to the polls and pull the party out of its predicted November nosedive.

Longwell joined Cook Political Report editor-in-chief Amy Walter to analyze Trump-voting respondents in Bulwarks’ latest survey.

“The thing that made me give him a C-minus is the promises that he made that from day one, he would lower prices and instead it's the opposite,” said one Trump voter. “Six rolls of paper towels used to be like $6.99. Now they're like $19. So, I just feel that some things he didn't keep his promise and some things he just did wrong.”

The voter also remarked that her daughter works for a government agency where “one day 300 people got fired that morning. Their laptops got taken away and they were just let go.”

“He is holding grudges against people, real or imagined, about people that worked for him before or people that he thought stole the election. I feel like he just can't get over this. And no proof that they really did anything wrong,” said the voter, referencing Trump’s “ridiculous lawsuits that cost us money.”

“I feel like he's falling asleep half the time,” she said, while also slamming Trump’s attempt to rig the election. “I'm very concerned about the next election, what he's trying to do. I feel like if he was so confident in himself, why are you worried about it? I think he realizes there's a lot of dissatisfaction right now with him.”

Still, she rated Trump a “C-minus.”

Another Trump voter gave the president a “C” because of the damage he is doing to the nation’s public safety net.

“There's people that are able-bodied that should be working, that shouldn't be on Medicaid. I get that. But what's going to happen is people that need it are going to have to be filling out paperwork twice a year. A lot of them won't do it,” said the woman. “I just knew that from my own being in the industry. We're being told as insurance brokers that we could very well see a lot of hospitals close, lose funding because of this, so I feel like the Republican current administration does not care about poor people. I feel like it's just about being wealthy.”

Yet another voter gave Trump poor reviews and beat the president sideways, but still could not bring herself to award him an “F.”

“Unless things really turn around, I'm like ... This is embarrassing. I don't really have like a lot of high standards for — you know, I don't want to talk show host. I don't want someone that's plastic and with all these platitudes, but this is just, it's enough,” she said. “… That's why I gave him a C-minus. There's not even a good economy to show for it. At least when people have money, I think when the economy is decent, everything else falls into place.”

With all the punishment being dished out by Trump’s own voters Longwell was surprised there were not more “F’s” in the grade scale. But Walter said Trump voters will not deliver F-grades in a polarized environment.

“Well, I think about this a lot, too, in the sense of just looking back at partisanship is just so much more intense now than it was back in 2006,” said Walter, pointing out that Trump will never reach George W. Bush-level disapproval because Republicans will never admit that to pollsters.

“I think it's really right that polarization and also living in a world where people don't like to admit that they were wrong,” said Longwell. “Nobody wants to say they changed their mind.”

President Donald Trump has long attempted to deny the sour state of America’s economy, even as rampant inflation causes millions of people to struggle to make ends meet. Yet on Wednesday, during a rally in Las Vegas, the president doubled down on his claim that the economy is improving — even as he acknowledged that things may get worse due to his ongoing war against Iran.

“Remember, we inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country,” Trump said. “We took over -- what a mess it was, and we were bringing down prices and we brought down prices and nobody can believe what is going on.”

At that point, Trump admitted that oil prices remain high, a condition significantly exacerbated by Iran taking control of the Strait of Hormuz.

“When oil goes down, and it's going to go down very rapidly and is already happening, we may have to send it up again, we may have to -- you know what happens when we send it up,” Trump said. “But we don't have to. But when that oil and gasoline go down, everything else follows. But we have done a great job at reducing prices and we have done an unbelievable job in making our country really, really respected and successful again.”

He also proceeded to brag about bringing drug prices down, making unsubstantiated claims that during his administration “we are delivering the largest prescription drug price cuts in the history of our country with price differences of- 400 percent, 500 percent and 600 percent.”

Speaking with AlterNet in April, Dr. Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at the Progressive Policy Institute, explained that Trump’s war against Iran will not cause gas prices to drop, despite claims like the one he made on Wednesday.

“I would guess that yes, destruction of Iranian (and some other) energy facilities in the Persian Gulf area will have at least a medium-term effect keeping prices for crude oil and chemical fertilizer high, and that in turn means gasoline prices may come down only slowly,” Gresser told AlterNet. “Same for other petroleum-based products such as plastics, skin creams, and so on. The high potential of conflict also adds risk premiums to shipping and other costs.”

He continued, “Longer-term, lots of open questions. One is whether the administration will really concede that Iran has a right to close the Strait of Hormuz and assess tolls on shipping passing through it. That would make the smaller Gulf monarchies and to some extent Iraq reliant on Iranian good will for all of their exports. Likewise, Asian countries are the main buyers of Persian Gulf energy, and their supplies would be much less secure.”

Gresser’s view was reinforced by Dr. Robert Shapiro, who served as a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton.

“Even if hostilities do not restart, the price of oil will not return to pre-Trump levels because there’s a new risk premium that they could restart at any time, increasing tanker insurance costs for example, and because oil infrastructure has been degraded, reducing supply for some time,” Shapiro told AlterNet. “An Iran-controlled toll to use the Strait will produce big bucks for Iran, but its impact on world prices for oil, natural gas, helium, etc. should be minimal. Another source of economic friction will be the now-intense uncertainty about what the Trump administration will do next—in the Mideast and in scores of policies at home; and uncertainty dampens investment.”

He added, “As it is, the economy was weakening before this crisis began, and these and other factors will exacerbate those downward pressures. A resolution over the next two weeks will not stop the deterioration in economic conditions.”

In response to these criticisms, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told AlterNet that “the United States’ energy dominance status, as the world’s leading producer and a top exporter of oil and natural gas, has positioned us to not rely on the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz like other countries. If anything, Operation Epic Fury actually underscored the importance of producing reliable, affordable, and secure energy here at home. Many of our allies that have tried transitioning to intermittent and unreliable renewable energy sources have predictably failed to break their reliance on foreign oil that goes through the Strait."

She concluded, "Several countries from around the world are now looking to emulate the President’s energy dominance agenda and are advancing new partnerships that enhance their energy security with the United States.”

- YouTube youtu.be

Racism is an act of self-destruction, warns podcaster Wajahat Ali and independent reporter Joy Ann-Reid. But that destruction extends to everything around them when they manage to grab the levers of power.

“I mean there's a big hole in the White House. The lawn where they built that ugly UFC ring is now brown. They've destroyed the Jackie Kennedy garden. [President] Donald Trump is supposed to be a builder but he physically destroyed D.C.,” said Reid. “And then that the poor pathetic little fair that he had, his little world's fair with the fake arch made of plastic. And they painted it. America right now is a laughingstock. I think we created 57,000 jobs last month. That is sad. It's a sad birthday.”

But this is the mess that comes of a nation that “refused to acknowledge and uproot its dark sin of white supremacy,” said Ali. “We whitewashed our history books, made heroes of racist traitors, and decided to elect the most incompetent, corrupt vulgarian after electing the first Black president.”

“Refusing to learn our lesson, we re-elected Trump, even though we could have had a competent Black woman as President. Now? America is turning into a s——hole,” Ali lamented. “Just look at the Reflecting Pool as a tragic example of our downfall. Take a trip to Washington, D.C., and see the absolute mess that is the White House. Our infrastructure is collapsing, our economy is ailing, and our public health is deteriorating. Measles, death, gun violence, and suicide are on the rise. But it doesn’t matter. White supremacy will destroy everything, including itself, instead of sharing power. It will burn everything down.”

“The right wing is not satisfied with just having physically destroyed the country,” said Reid. “[They] destroyed the morale of the country on our birthday where we're sad and pathetic and can't even pull off a world's fair.”

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, barely protected birthright citizenship with a six-to-three vote when all the justices had to do was read the Constitution and see that if you're born here, you're a citizen, said Ali.

With the war on birthright citizenship and MAGA cries to sterilize brown immigrants, Reid said MAGA and Trump are laboring for a very specific kind of America.

“If they were successful at removing everyone who looks like you and me — all the Blacks, all the browns, all the Muslims all the AAPI, all the Latinos — if they got their way, you know what America would look like? It would look like Trump’s pathetic American state fair,” said Reid. “That was a place where there were no Blacks. There were no gays. There were no brown people. It was just MAGA white folks. The one’s who weren’t broken by [Trump’s] economy, who could afford to get on a plane or drive to DC with these gas prices. It was an estimate that the first day was like a 1,000 people — only tens of MAGA could even afford to go there. … [because] they are the poor. They are broke. They're bored. And they're boring.”

“There was no musical entertainment,” Reid raged. “That cultural anti-phenomenon that we saw at that pathetic Trump celebration supposedly of America’s birthday and Donald Trump — that is what's left when you get rid of all of us. If you really get rid of people of color then American culture is like sad Europe.”

“Like a crusty, crusty mayo sandwich that has been left in the sun for two days,” added Ali.

“One-hundred percent,” confirmed Reid. “You'd get no Janet Jackson, no Michael Jackson, no Prince, no Whitney Houston, no Aretha Franklin, no jazz, no gospel, no hip-hop. What do you actually have? What is your culture? What is this white culture that you're trying to preserve at all costs, at the cost of your own economy?”

Ali added that even MAGA doesn’t like MAGA America.

“When they move to the Southern states where do they move to when they move to Texas? Austin! When they move to Tennessee, they move to Nashville,” said Ali. “Even MAGA influencer] Nick Fuentes was like ‘yeah, I don't want to really move to a red state. So, they know that their mayo sandwich is s——. They know their potato salad sucks. They know their chicken is dry and has no spice. They know that they're bland and pasty and that they have no culture and no rhythm.”

Visitors touring Washington D.C. cannot seem to shake off the feeling that President Donald Trump is stamping his presence on every nook and crevice — and they’re furious.

Speaking with city visitors Julie and husband Robert on the edge of Lafayette Square, the Guardian noted a scuffed sign proclaiming: “We are making DC safe and beautiful.”

But Julie didn’t see it that way while visiting the city in celebration of her recent marriage, said the Guardian.

“The irony,” she said, spying the chain-link fence surrounded the square, closing the site off from the public for renovation under the Trump’s orders. “It’s neither safe, nor beautiful.”\

Local preservationists say Julie’s “withering verdict is widely shared.”

“It is a different city right now,” said Rebecca Miller, executive director of the DC Preservation League, a city heritage group. “There are visitors from out of town who are disappointed that they’re only here for a few days, and there’s so much construction going on at the moment. … This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip for some people, and to have it marred down with not being able to access certain sites can be really disappointing.”

Trump ordered the East Wing of the White House demolished to make way for a massive ballroom, leaving a $600 million bill and a colossal gash in the dirt where once sat a pristine wing occupied by First Ladies advocating for women’s and minority rights, as well as national preservation projects, among other noble ventures.

The administration also commissioned a laughable “restoration” of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on the National Mall. By Saturday the “waterproof” American Flag Blue-tinted sealant was peeling up in huge blue mats of floating plastic and being collected by tourists as souvenirs of Trump-style efficiency.

Trump’s no-bid renovation for the project cost taxpayers more than $14 million—about seven times the cost of a competitor’s estimate.

Impenetrable construction barriers and cranes scratch the rest of the local tourist scenery with dozens of Trump-related projects underway, complete with dust, steel beams and overturned lumps of deep gray dirt.

“Scenes of visitors like Robert and Julie squinting for a better view have become commonplace,” as Trump micromanages city construction in connection to his personal birthday and the birthday of the nation, said the Guardian.

“Everything that I’ve seen is to honor Donald Trump, not America’s 250th anniversary,” said Robert, a retired US history professor at a private college in Brooklyn. “ … “We have the irony of a man who has the instincts of an absolute monarch presiding over the celebration of our separation from a constitutional monarch. It’s quite something.”

“I’ve been here many times before, and I have never imagined that I would be so completely locked out of everything,” said Angie Clark, a molecular biologist from Salt Lake City. “It feels exclusive, and not in a good way. Maybe once the party starts up, it will be better.”

“It’s so symbolic of what he’s doing to the country. It’s like he’s s—— all over our nation’s capital,” said Tampa author Norma Roth, spying a line of nearby ugly Porta Potties connected to Trump’s June 14 Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) game. “… It’s like we are under occupation.”