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Trump has been hawking himself in an absurdly grandiose way his whole life. But this time he isn’t grandstanding as a flamboyant New York businessman. He’s selling himself as the president of the United States, staining his office with a blithe display of turpitude.

Protesters at the golf club shouted, “Shame, shame, shame!” but there is no shame in Trumpworld. Trump asked guests, who were whooping with joy at the president who allowed them to purchase such primo access by essentially lining the pockets of Trump and his family, if they had seen his helicopter.

“Yeah, super cool!” gushed a guest.

Buyers flew in from China and around the world, scarfing up a fortune in $TRUMP — some had millions of dollars worth — to procure the 220 seats at the dinner.

“It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump,” Lipton and Yaffe-Bellany wrote. “Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.”

Pan-seared influence peddling with a citrus reduction. The prez is a pro at quid pro quo.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, rebutted criticism on Thursday, saying: “The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner.”

But he flew to Virginia on Marine One. He gave his remarks from a lectern with the presidential seal. And some of the crypto crowd on Friday got a tour of the White House (Lipton took his post outside the fence).

With more than a dozen lucrative deals for his family and partners, the Times article said, “Mr. Trump is estimated to have added billions to his personal fortune, at least on paper, since the start of his new term, much of it through crypto.”

The corruption is seeping across the Potomac.
Don Jr. and investors are opening a pricey private club in Georgetown called “Executive Branch,” where business and tech moguls can cozy up to administration big shots.

The infamous $400 million gift for Trump from the Qataris, a luxury jumbo jet, has arrived in San Antonio. This alluring “pre-bribe,” as “S.N.L.” dubbed it, instantly wiped out Trump’s old concerns that “the nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” (Accepting the plane was sort of like a terrorist fist-bump, the same kind a Fox News host bizarrely accused the Obamas of making with each other.)

Other foreign leaders got the message that emoluments were welcome. In an Oval Office meeting where Trump continued to relish his role as protector of the white patriarchy, the South African president jokingly told the American president, “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.” (This might be the line that best sums up the Trump presidency in the history books.)

Trump replied breezily: “I wish you did. I’d take it.”

Trump Inc.’s money grabs were taking place against the background of the president pushing through his “big, beautiful bill” extending his obscene tax cut for the rich while slicing billions from programs that help poor people stay alive.