NOW REPORTING FROM BALTIMORE. A private, non-commercial blog begun in support of the federal Meaningful Use REC initiative, and Health IT and Heathcare improvement more broadly. Moving now toward important broader STEM and societal/ethics topics. Formerly known as "The REC Blog."
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As a young man in New York, Donald Trump was determined to stamp his name onto physical structures. He was Fred Trump’s son, he was on the make, and he wanted to leave his own indelible mark on Manhattan—the wealthiest borough in the city and one his father had never conquered. Putting his name on a gleaming Fifth Avenue tower was an exercise in branding into the American consciousness. For Donald Trump, to be famous was to exist.
Forty years later and at the pinnacle of American power, the by-now-seventy-nine-year-old Trump was obsessed with dreams of legacy and determined to use the scope of an imperial presidency to imprint his name on everything, including the low-rise cityscape of Washington, D.C.
By the norms of history, the naming rights for monuments belonged to subsequent generations, and those honors were conferred by Congress, by historians and commissions, and by public acclaim. It was the American way. But Donald Trump had long since demonstrated that he could adore himself far more, and in greater detail, than anyone else might. Why wait? He had watched in rage as his name was removed from buildings in New York City in protest during his first presidency and after its calamitous end. It was a mistake to assume others would praise you for your efforts, he told The New York Times in 1980. “If you let people treat you how they want, you’ll be made a fool,” he said, before adding, “I don’t want to be made anybody’s sucker.”
John F. Kennedy had never named anything for himself. Nor had any other President in American history openly campaigned for a public structure to bear his name—though a few, like Washington and Hoover, had buildings or landmarks named for them by others while still in office. President Gerald Ford went so far as to refuse to sign a bill that would have renamed a courthouse and federal office building after him. Ford said he knew of no federal buildings that had been named for a President while still in office, and if he were to accept the honor it “might begin a precedent I believe it best not to establish.”
One of Kennedy’s legacies, together with the First Lady Jackie Kennedy, had been turning the White House into a showcase for American arts and high culture, inviting poets, musicians, actors, and dancers to perform at social events, special concerts, and state dinners. When Kennedy was slain it seemed natural that a nation searching for a way to celebrate his life would name a cultural center in his honor. On January 23, 1964, the National Cultural Center—created by an act of Congress at the end of the Eisenhower administration—was officially renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to serve as the “sole national memorial” to the thirty-fifth President.
Since then, the Kennedy Center had served as the cultural center of the capital city, the longtime home of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera, and the host of the world-renowned Kennedy Center Honors.
In this most political city in the country, the Kennedy Center was for decades managed by a bipartisan board, maintaining a reputation for political neutrality, focused on artistic excellence rather than partisan favor. But Trump had refused to attend the Kennedy Center award ceremony during his first term because so many of the artists had made it clear they were anti-Trump. Now, in his second term, he would not only attend the ceremony, but he would have a hand in picking the honorees. And he would appoint himself the evening’s host.
When on December 18, 2025, the board of directors of the Kennedy Center had voted unanimously to change the name to “the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” Trump feigned surprise and humility that the board—which he had personally selected just a few weeks after his second inauguration and of which he was now the chairman—would bestow such an honor.
The renaming was enthusiastically embraced by Sergio Gor, then the head of the presidential personnel office, but later dispatched as ambassador to India. When Gor raised it with Trump months earlier, the President loved it. You’re doing all this work for the Kennedy Center, Gor had told him flatteringly. You got the money. You should at least get your name on it with JFK.
The White House quietly ordered the large letters “DONALD J. TRUMP” to be added to the facade well before the board had even rubber-stamped the authorization to rename the building…
The Maggie Haberman-Jonathan Swan book was just released.
Yeah, of course I bought it. Stay tuned...
UPDATE
I am deep into this book. Very disturbing, even for someone already steeped in Trump critical biographies.
A snip from midway through the book:
By midway through the year, a picture was emerging of how the Oval Office operated in Trump’s second term. It was of a President spending his days at the Resolute Desk in a series of rolling bull sessions, accompanied by a core group of intimates; these were supplemented by a rotating cast of extras, and on any given day they could be Republican lawmakers, titans of industry, former pro wrestlers, country musicians, Gulf royals, crypto bros, or friends of felons seeking pardons. They would enter and exit the frame, with some invited to stay for meetings they had no business attending. The conversations ran fast, often straying far from the point, or from anything visitors imagined when they arrived at the White House. The President’s sentences often began on one topic and ended far away.
The ever-present Natalie Harp was generally on a chair off to the side, her laptop open, head cocked, listening but never contributing unless ordered to by Trump. She fulfilled, in a flash, any request, whether a “Trump 2028” hat needed to be fetched from the merchandise room, a quick Google search, or producing the latest story from right-wing websites like Breitbart or Gateway Pundit. Once Dan Scavino became the head of the Presidential Personnel Office in late 2025, he mostly handed over Trump’s Truth Social account to Harp.
Most presidents had adhered to the mantra that their most valuable commodity was time. George W. Bush and Barack Obama scheduled their days down to blocks of ten or fifteen minutes. The ideal “gatekeeper” function of a White House chief of staff was to guard those blocks of time against needless interruptions. But Susie Wiles had little interest in micromanaging her boss’s time, perhaps correctly calculating it was futile. She could try to control access to who got into the Oval Office, and what their agenda might be, but otherwise she would let the President set his own pace.
In Donald Trump’s White House, time was a flexible concept. To outsiders, the administration appeared a hive of activity, but those brought into the Oval Office would often remark that Trump seemed to have all the time in the world. Unless the meeting concerned an imminent military operation, Trump was usually relaxed, gossipy, unhurried. Many visitors to the Oval were charmed. Even those who didn’t like him would often describe the President as solicitous and flattering, offering Diet Cokes and candy as if he were a greeter at one of his clubs. He would tell bawdy jokes and compliment his guests on how good they looked. He signed MAGA hats and extra ones for their kids and would urge them to come to Mar-a-Lago that weekend or to one of his golf clubs. He would spend hours examining the minute details of Oval Office decorations and plans for the ballroom he was plotting on the grounds of the East Wing. He loved showing off the quality of the speakers that piped his music—Pavarotti and Sinéad O’Connor and James Brown—into the Rose Garden patio. And he would regale visitors—especially foreign leaders—with the details of his 2024 election victory, subject them to his familiar litany of complaints about “Sleepy Joe,” and pepper them with questions about the dangerous animals in their countries with the fascination of a child.
“I still can’t fully describe what the Oval Office is like with him,” said one visitor. “You’d have two people on two different speakerphones. Another person on a cell phone. I’ll never forget talking about a highly classified program, and this guy—looked like just a salt-of-the-earth, country guy—walks in and he’s got samples for the Rose Garden paving. Pops them on the desk. And the President stops what we’re talking about, gets up there, and walks out there with him and I see a lot of hands moving. And he comes back and then looks over our shoulders, and the curator is there with somebody to drill the cherubs into the wall that he had brought up from Mar-a-Lago. And then he goes back to the people on the phone, gives them guidance. And then he tries to come back to us, but we’re out of time.”
This pattern would repeat all day long. The President’s last three meetings of the day would often blur into one contiguous meeting. Trade, national security, a visiting CEO. All would be mashed together into one borderless conversation. Trump had run his days this way—unstructured and improvisational—since the years he spent working from his corner office in Trump Tower. But in his second term, Trump had made the White House more fully his home—not just fixing it in accordance with his aesthetic, but fundamentally changing the rhythms and structures and operations of the place…
Haberman, Maggie; Swan, Jonathan. Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump (pp. 169-171). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Article II, Section 1: ...Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Article II, Section 3: ...he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed...
My thoughts on Facebook earlier today:
When you become U.S. President, you swear/affirm the Oath set forth in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution to "faithfully execute the Office of the President" and to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution." What you are bound to "execute" is also set forth in Section 3: "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."
Today I read two articles detailing Trump's explicit statements and his administration's overt actions aimed at deliberately sabotaging the LAW that is still "Obamacare" (whatever your opinion of it) to help make sure it "fails," irrespective of how many citizens get hurt in the process.
To me, that should be impreachable right there -- willful contravention of his Oath of Office, with regard to a law directly and substantively impacting nearly 20% of the U.S. economy and nearly every life in the nation. This is not about dissing or subverting some tiny Capitol Park Police Dog Leash law.
Yeah, I know..."wish in one hand..." "tu quoque" (they all do it).
SPEAKING OF "OAF"
President Trump just gave the New York Times a bizarre, on-the-record, audio-recorded interview (the one during which he threw his Attorney General under the bus, insulted the FBI, and threatened Special Prosecutor Mueller). From the health care segment of the 7,500 word transcript:
TRUMP: Hi fellas, how you doing? BAKER: Good. Good. How was your lunch [with Republican senators]? TRUMP: It was good. We are very close. It’s a tough — you know, health care. Look, Hillary Clinton worked eight years in the White House with her husband as president and having majorities and couldn’t get it done. Smart people, tough people — couldn’t get it done. Obama worked so hard. They had 60 in the Senate. They had big majorities and had the White House. I mean, ended up giving away the state of Nebraska. They owned the state of Nebraska. Right. Gave it away. Their best senator did one of the greatest deals in the history of politics. What happened to him? But I think we are going to do O.K. I think we are going to see. I mean, one of my ideas was repeal. But I certainly rather would get repeal and replace, because the next last thing I want to do is start working tomorrow morning on replace. And it is time. It is tough. It’s a very narrow path, winding this way. You think you have it, and then you lose four on the other side because you gave. It is a brutal process. And it was for Democrats, in all fairness. I mean, you think of Hillary Clinton, and you look, she went eight years — very capable — went eight years as the first lady, and could not get health care. So this is not an easy crack. The one thing I’ll say about myself, so, Obama was in there for eight years and got Obamacare. Hillary Clinton was in there eight years and they never got Hillarycare, whatever they called it at the time. I am not in here six months, and they’ll say, “Trump hasn’t fulfilled his agenda.” I say to myself, wait a minute, I’m only here a very short period of time compared to Obama. How long did it take to get Obamacare? BAKER: March, March 2010. TRUMP: So he was there for more than a year. HABERMAN: Fourteen months. TRUMP: And I’m here less than six months, so, ah, you know. Something to think about. BAKER: We wrote the same stories, though, in August of 2009. “Obama can’t get it.” SCHMIDT: It died several times. HABERMAN: Several times. TRUMP: Well, it was a tough one. That was a very tough one. BAKER: He lost that election [the 2010 midterms]. TRUMP: Nothing changes. Nothing changes. Once you get something for pre-existing conditions, etc., etc. Once you get something, it’s awfully tough to take it away. HABERMAN: That’s been the thing for four years. When you win an entitlement, you can’t take it back. TRUMP: But what it does, Maggie, it means it gets tougher and tougher. As they get something, it gets tougher. Because politically, you can’t give it away. So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of. HABERMAN: Am I wrong in thinking — I’ve talked to you a bunch of times about this over the last couple years, but you are generally of the view that people should have health care, right? I mean, I think that you come at it from the view of … TRUMP: Yes, yes. [garbled] TRUMP: So I told them today, I don’t want to do that. I want to either get it done or not get it done. If we don’t get it done, we are going to watch Obamacare go down the tubes, and we’ll blame the Democrats. And at some point, they are going to come and say, “You’ve got to help us.” BAKER: Did the senators want to try again? TRUMP: I think so. We had a great meeting. Was I late? [crosstalk] TRUMP: It was a great meeting. We had 51 show up, other than John. BAKER: Senator McCain. TRUMP: That’s a lot. Normally when they call for a meeting, you have like 20. HABERMAN: How about the last one in June? Do you guys remember how many came? TRUMP: Ah, 49. It was actually 48, but John McCain was there. But I guess we had 51 today, so that counts. That shows the spirit. BAKER: Who is the key guy? TRUMP: Well, they are all key. The problem is we have 52 votes. Don’t forget, you look at Obama, he had 60. That’s a big difference. So, we have 52 votes. Now, I guess we lose Susan Collins. I guess we lose Rand Paul. Then we can’t lose any votes. That is a very tough standard. Statistically, you want to bet on that all day long. With that being said, I think we had a great meeting. I think we had a great meeting. HABERMAN: Where does it go from here, do you think? TRUMP: Well, I say, let’s not vote on repeal. Let’s just vote on this. So first, they vote on the vote. And that happens sometime Friday? HABERMAN: Next week. TRUMP: Or Monday? Monday. And then they’ll vote on this, and we’ll see. We have some meetings scheduled today. I think we have six people who are really sort of O.K. They are all good people. We don’t have bad people. I know the bad people. Believe me, do I know bad people. And we have a very good group of people, and I think they want to get there. So we’ll see what happens. But it’s tough. SCHMIDT: How’s [Mitch] McConnell to work with? TRUMP: I like him. I mean, he’s good. He’s good. It’s been a tough process for him. HABERMAN: He’s taken on some water. TRUMP: Yeah. It’s been a tough process for him. This health care is a tough deal. I said it from the beginning. No. 1, you know, a lot of the papers were saying — actually, these guys couldn’t believe it, how much I know about it. I know a lot about health care. [garbled] This is a very tough time for him, in a sense, because of the importance. And I believe we get there. This is a very tough time for them, in a sense, because of the importance. And I believe that it’s [garbled], that makes it a lot easier. It’s a mess. One of the things you get out of this, you get major tax cuts, and reform. And if you add what the people are going to save in the middle income brackets, if you add that to what they’re saving with health care, this is like a windfall for the country, for the people. So, I don’t know, I thought it was a great meeting. I bet the number’s — I bet the real number’s four. But let’s say six or eight. And everyone’s [garbled], so statistically, that’s a little dangerous, right? BAKER: Pretty tight. TRUMP: I hope we don’t have any grandstanders. I don’t think we do. [garbled] TRUMP: I think it will be pretty bad for them if they did. I don’t think we have any — I think it would be very bad for — I think this is something the people want. They’ve been promised it...
Nobody knows everything, and certainly nobody who’s ever sat in the Oval Office has entered with a complete mastery of all the varied issues that land on the desk of the president of the United States.
But reading the transcript of Donald Trump’s recent interview with three New York Times reporters, two things stand out. One is the sheer range of subjects that Trump does not understand correctly — from French urban planning to health insurance to Russian military history to where Baltimore is to domestic policy in the 1990s to his own regulatory initiatives. The other is that Trump is determined, across the board, to simply bluff and bluster through rather than admitting to any uncertainty or gaps in his knowledge.
It’s an approach that’s certainly commonplace among Trump’s cohort of rich Manhattanites. People who’ve spent years surrounded by flatterers and lackeys eager to get their hands on their money tend to come away with an inflated sense of their own domains of competence. But precisely because the demands of the presidency are so unimaginably vast, it’s a frightening attribute in a chief executive.
The complete interview is a little bit hard to parse, since Trump keeps ducking off the record and the transcript interrupts. But it really is worth taking in the whole thing — the scope is breathtaking.
Trump doesn’t seem to know what health insurance is Health care policy is very complicated, but most Americans have at least some passing familiarity with how health insurance works because most of us have health insurance.
Trump himself, meanwhile, has spent years as a top executive at a business that provides health insurance to its employees. So you would think that even if he were completely ignorant of every single topic of public policy, he would at least be aware that to provide a person with health insurance is expensive. It is, after all, an expense that his businesses incur…
"You're going to have such great health care, at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it's going to be so easy."- Donald Trump, Oct 2016 Florida campaign rally.
"We
have to come up, and we can come up with many different plans. In fact,
plans you don't even know about will be devised because we're going to
come up with plans, -- health care plans -- that will be so good. And so
much less expensive both for the country and for the people. And so
much better.”
John Cassidy Donald Trump’s Addled and Ominous Interview with the Times It is often said, and with ample reason, that much of what Donald Trump says isn’t worth a jot. As Tony Schwartz, Trump’s ghostwriter, noted last year, “lying is second nature to him.” When he isn’t telling outright whoppers, he exaggerates things outrageously, and his utterances often bear little resemblance from one day to the next. On Tuesday, he said that Republicans should let Obamacare crash and burn. On Wednesday, he said that he wanted to see it replaced. But, whereas Trump’s statements often fail to withstand inspection when examined individually, analyzing a group of them together can sometimes provide valuable insights into his mind-set, which, at this time, appears to be even more addled than usual. The interview that Trump gave on Wednesday to three reporters from the Times offers us that opportunity...
I don't find any of this the slightest bit amusing, given the significant major policy issues our nation needs to be forthrightly addressing. Like, duh, health care?
SUNDAY UPDATE
Again, from The New Yorker, excellent, this from Amy Davidson Sorkin, spot-on:
...The Republican leadership’s argument of last resort, when whipping votes, has been that the Party has to do something dramatic about Obamacare simply because, for the past seven years, it has said that it would. That is an explanation of a quagmire, not a call to arms...
...McConnell has said that he will delay the Senate’s August recess, if necessary, to try for another vote on something: repeal, replace, or a thrown-together bill to be named later; his zigzagging mirrors that of the President. If this attempt fails, the backup plan seems to be to turn the matter over to the executive branch and let it commit whatever acts of regulatory, budgetary, and administrative vandalism it can, to break the system bit by bit. For example, it could withhold crucial cost-sharing subsidies, or decline to defend Obamacare against various lawsuits that its opponents, including the House Republicans, have brought against it...
Yep. Jus' sayin'. Taking care "that the laws be faithfully executed" -- what a quaint notion.
JULY 25TH UPDATE
Yesterday President Trump inflicted himself on the 2017 Boy Scouts Jamboree in West Virginia.
____________
