Trump Press Sec’s Flattery of Him Goes Awry as Ballroom Fiasco Worsens

We’re seeing a confluence of events that suggest President Trump’s corruption has crossed over to an ugly new place. Trump is destroying a White House building to create a ballroom for him and his rich friends. He’s demanding that the Justice Department hand over $230 million in taxpayer funds to compensate him for “damages.” And Democrats from Senator Chris Murphy to Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries are going after all this in a newly aggressive way. Into this mess stepped White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who issued an extraordinary new defense of Trump’s ballroom fiasco. It was absolutely laden with comically cultish devotion to the Audience of One, but the hagiography also revealed something darker. We talked to New Republic staff writer Matt Ford, author of a great new piece about Trump’s corruption. He explains how all this self-dealing and all this worshipful propaganda reveal Trump’s profound contempt for the rule of law, for DOJ independence, for the idea of the public good, and even for the American people. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.