Trump needs that Qatari 747 — for all his evasive maneuvers

Opinion Dana Milbank Trump needs that Qatari 747 — for all his evasive maneuvers Trump said Monday that he invented a new word that is very old. But it is the best word for him. May 12, 2025 at 7:02 p.m. EDTToday at 7:02 p.m. EDT 5 min

President Donald Trump with Mehmet Oz, left, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the White House on Monday. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) Is there no end to the talents of the very stable genius? As he rolled out his executive order on Monday decreeing lower prices for prescription drugs, President Donald Trump announced that he had also achieved a lexicographical breakthrough. Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter “There’s a new word that I came up with, which I think is probably the best word,” he announced from the Roosevelt Room. “We’re going to ‘equalize,’ where we’re all going to pay the same.” He has the best words. A stickler might point out that, according to the Online Etymology Library, the word “equalize” has been part of the English language since the 1580s. But let us not be sticklers. Let us give Trump credit for the greatest linguistic innovation since the Gulf of America. In fact, let us call him the Great Equalizer. Opinions on the Trump administration Next Opinion Natasha Sarin Trump’s attack on nonprofits has an ugly history Trump’s attack on nonprofits has an ugly history May 12, 2025 Opinion Jacob T. Levy Qatar’s gift to Trump reveals a loophole big enough to fly a jumbo jet through Qatar’s gift to Trump reveals a loophole big enough to fly a jumbo jet thro... May 11, 2025 Opinion Jason Willick Forget ‘Project 2025.’ Trump’s executive power blueprint came out in 1988. Forget ‘Project 2025.’ Trump’s executive power blueprint came out in 1988. 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May 2, 2025 Opinion Dana Milbank As wreckage piles up, Trump and his aides retreat to fantasyland As wreckage piles up, Trump and his aides retreat to fantasyland May 2, 2025 For months, he has been telling us that tariffs will make us “rich as hell” and that they would pay for his tax cuts. On Monday, after abandoning most of the tariffs, he made the same claims about free trade: “World trade is going to be terrific, and our country’s going to be making a lot of money. Taxes are going to go down.” Protectionism or free trade: It’s all equal. For ages, he has been telling us that China is “raping” and “killing” us. On Monday, he told us that the “European Union is, in many ways, nastier than China” and said of the People’s Republic: “The relationship is very good. We’re not looking to hurt China.” China as foe or China as friend: It’s all equal. Follow Trump’s second term Follow Trump has called himself “the best president in the history of Israel.” Now, he has cut the Israeli government out of negotiations with the Houthis, Hamas, Iran and the Saudis. He’s skipping Israel on this week’s tour of the Middle East, and on Monday he described Iran as “acting very intelligent” and “being very reasonable” in nuclear talks, adding: “We want Iran to be wealthy and wonderful and happy and great.” Israel or Iran: It’s all equal. In the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Trump repeated his promise to Americans: “We’re giving not only you — no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime, but also we’re going to get a deduction for people that borrow money to buy a car if it’s made in America.” But the version of Trump’s tax cuts just drafted by House Republicans contains none of these provisions, nor his recent call to raise taxes on the very rich. Promises, schmomises: It’s all equal. Last week, Vice President JD Vance said of the India-Pakistan standoff: “We’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business.” On Monday, the Great Equalizer boasted the opposite, that “my administration helped broker a full and immediate cease-fire — I think a permanent one — between India and Pakistan, ending a dangerous conflict of two nations with lots of nuclear weapons.” In some cases, such as his retreat from the trade war, it’s a good thing that Trump is showing himself to have no fixed principles other than self-interest. It raises the hope that he might change his mind about other terrible ideas, such as his assaults on the Constitution, scientific research and universities. But because he has no moorings, he’s just as likely to embrace some new outrage — hey, let’s suspend habeas corpus! — that hadn’t previously occurred to him. Between free markets and government controls, and between individual freedom and coercion, it’s all equal. Trump described coming to his prescription-drug epiphany in typically whimsical fashion — because of a rich friend’s complaint. He told reporters on Monday about “a highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and he takes the fat — the fat shot drug.” The friend, in Trump’s telling, called from London and told the president “I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.” “I said, ‘It’s not working,’” Trump recounted. He then explained that his friend paid $88 in London for the drug but $1,300 in New York. “It was just one of those stories,” Trump said, “and I brought it up with the drug companies …” The rest is history. Monday morning’s rollout of the drug policy, however, made a better case for ADHD medication than weight-loss drugs. Mehmet Oz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Trump health advisers stood, swaying, behind the president as he went on at length about missile defense, Fox News’s “The Five,” Joe Biden, Ukraine, Obamacare and much more. His aides provided the customary adulation. Oz celebrated Trump’s “guts” and “fortitude.” Kennedy praised his boss’s “intestinal fortitude” and his “stiff spine” in taking on big pharma, claiming that Trump “can’t be bought” and is “willing to stand up to the oligarchs.” The latest evidence of this incorruptibility: Trump will accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 “flying palace” from the royal family of Qatar — which will go to his library when his presidency ends rather than remain government property. Trump explained on Monday that it would be “stupid” not to accept this emolument, which he likened to being offered a “gimme” in golf: “When they give you a putt, you say, ‘thank you very much,’ you pick up your ball and you walk to the next hole.” A $400 million bribe or a two-foot gimme putt? To the Great Equalizer, they are the same.