WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump had an urgent matter to address as he returned to Washington from his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate on a recent Sunday.
It wasn’t the war on Iran, nor the partial government shutdown still ongoing at the Department of Homeland Security. He wanted to talk about a different kind of monumental issue, brandishing large artist renderings of the $400 million White House ballroom he’s building, complete with hand-carved “top-of-the-line” Corinthian columns.
“I’m so busy I don’t have time to do this. I’m fighting wars and other things,” Trump said before detailing plans for “the biggest ballroom anywhere in the world.”
His divided attention has become a Democratic point of attack and a concern for some Republicans who worry voters aren’t spending enough time on the issues that matter most to them ahead of November’s midterm races.
The contrast was on full display Thursday, when Trump flew to Las Vegas to discuss tax cuts for tips to earn Americans, as his administration moved forward with plans to build a 250-foot Triumphal Arch near the Lincoln Memorial, complete with a Lady Liberty-like statue and a pair of golden eagles.
The president’s ability to address the concerns of working people has always seemed inconsistent with his biography as a billionaire real estate developer. However, during his 2024 campaign, his populist policies and emphasis on the economy helped propel him back to the White House.
Republican strategist Rick Tyler noted that, when Trump first ran for president in 2016, his assets were a selling point.
“While other people like Mitt Romney played up how rich he was, Trump was giving away free helicopter rides to the Iowa State Fair,” Tyler said. “People loved it.”
Still, Trump’s preoccupation with some of the golden trappings of the presidency, just as many Americans worry about the bills, has led him to charge that he is a modern-day Marie Antoinette.
“‘Fighting a war’ and rising gas prices, yet Trump has time to brag about his billionaire-backed ballroom,” Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, responded to X at Trump’s Air Force One presentation.
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 — posting an AI-generated image of Trump’s face on her body to social media.
“Trump says ‘Marie Antoinette,’ ‘No health care for you peasants, but a ballroom for a queen!’ Newsom wrote at the beginning of the 43-day government shutdown in October 2025.
The White House has said that Trump’s success has benefited all Americans
Asked about opponents invoking Marie Antoinette, White House spokesman Davis Ing said Trump “will go down in history as the most successful and consequential president of our lifetime.”
“Her success on behalf of the American people will be printed on the fabric of America and felt by every White House that follows her,” Ingle said in a statement.
The president faced similar criticism during his first term. But recently he has been criticized for being disconnected from Americans’ concerns about high costs, which could leave Republicans in an uphill battle to retain control of Congress.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say Trump is “out of touch” with the concerns of most people in the United States today, according to a February ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, although the same percentage said the same about the Democratic Party.
Presidents are generally removed from the electorate, separated by layers of security and surrounded by subordinates. In her book “Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succeed Again,” Elaine Kamarck argues that presidents focus too much on their own political narratives rather than the public’s concerns. However, when it comes to Trump, “all of this stuff is clearly unique to him.”
She pointed to the ballroom as well as Trump’s other White House renovations, soon adding his signature to paper currency, and naming the Kennedy Center after himself.
“It’s a reflection, I think, of his own background as a businessman and someone who made his fortune selling his name,” said Kamerk, who worked in Bill Clinton’s White House.
While Trump focuses on the ballroom and other Washington projects, some public works projects in other parts of the country are languishing.
Joe Meyer, the former mayor of Covington, Kentucky, spent years pushing for critical improvements to the Brent Spence Bridge connecting his city to Cincinnati, a project listed as a top federal priority since the first Trump administration.
Federal funding for the reforms was approved under President Joe Biden but blocked by a Trump-ordered review. Work is now finally set to begin later this year, although the delay will limit design options and slow the project, the mayor said.
“The ballroom is inside-baseball Washington,” Meyer said. “The bridge is just a ruin. It’s a disappointment that we’ve been dealing with forever.”
$100 tip and a gold tractor
Announcing a new tax cut for tips, Trump staged a McDonald’s order in the Oval Office — which he laden with golden fruit — and tipped a $100 delivery to a grandmother. As she described her husband’s huge medical bills from cancer treatment, Trump said she should bring him to an upcoming UFC fight on the White House lawn.
When hundreds of farmers were invited to the White House for a farm policy speech, they stood on the South Lawn next to a gold-painted tractor. It rained, but Trump stayed dry, addressing them from a covered second-floor balcony.
The president told the farmers below, “You don’t like rain.
He then flew to Miami for a conference of Saudi investors who, the president noted, were too wealthy to be affected by American families trying to save $5,000.
“I know they’re like, ‘What’s $5,000?'” Trump joked. “Their shoes are worth over $5,000.”
In February, meanwhile, when asked for his message to young people looking to buy a home, Trump replied: “Save a little time. Wait a little while.”
Cabinet members have also fed the notion that Trump’s promised “golden age” may not arrive for everyone. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. advised Americans to buy liver instead of beef.
“If you go and buy a steak, it’s still very expensive. But if you buy the cheaper cuts, it’s great meat. And it’s very, very affordable. Or liver, or, you know, all these options,” he told podcast host Joe Rogan.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said people can still buy meals that include “chicken pieces, broccoli pieces, corn tortillas and other things.”
The White House has sought to show that Trump is in tune with voter concerns by sending the president to politically competitive parts of the country to cut costs. But Trump has stepped back on message, insisting that affordability concerns are a Democratic “trick.”
Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based Republican consultant, said he thinks Trump “may get away with building a ballroom” because voters have come to expect him as a brash dealmaker and businessman.
But Steinhauser said he worries that dramatic increases in gas prices and a potentially weak economy might resonate with voters. Before the midterms, Steinhauser said, Democrats can “score points trying to make it more about Trump and his elite friends.”
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Associated Press writers Lynne Sanders in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
