IDLE HANDS

Insiders Reveal Lame Duck Trump’s Focus for Next Two Years

The president will need to keep himself busy following Tuesday’s electoral wipeout.

Donald Trump will use his severely restricted final two years in the White House to prioritize building his presidential library, according to a report.

Those close to the 80-year-old president say he will focus on building a shrine to his apparent legacy in Miami once Democrats take control of the House and Senate following the brutal midterm election results.

“He undoubtedly recognizes that the library development season opens now, and he will go for it,” a senior administration official told CBS News.

Another administration official told the network that the president would use his lame-duck period to focus on “all things he can control, which means: Building.”

Trump has proposed building his library in downtown Miami, Florida, although the final design plans are still being ironed out.

One concept involves making the venue more like a skyscraper hotel, stretching 47 stories high—a not-too-subtle nod to Trump being the 47th president.

Trump has also considered putting the $400 million luxury jet gifted to him by Qatar on display as a centerpiece exhibit, alongside an enormous golden statue of him raising his fist in the air in the aftermath of the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.

A video Trump shared on Truth Social in March also indicated that the library would feature golden escalators, similar to the one he rode down in New York City’s Trump Tower when he announced his first presidential bid in 2015.

The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation believes the project could cost around $950 million. With the midterms now over and Trump no longer needing to raise funds for another White House bid, the president can focus his fundraising efforts on the library.

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“The library is one of the last few places he can squeeze people for money,” a former Trump adviser told CBS News. “That’s what a businessman does. He just creates opportunities.”

Other money has also come from Trump allies desperate to remain in his good graces. When it emerged last month that two of Trump’s closest advisers—Chris LaCivita and James Blair—had traveled to Eastern Europe for a paid gig advising a pro-Russian ruling party on how to win an upcoming election, the pair later donated the six-figure sum they received to help build the presidential library.

Trump also demanded that his former personal lawyer, Alina Habba, donate a chunk of the $50 million she received from billionaire Venezuelan businessman Julio Herrera Velutini, who was seeking a pardon from Trump at the time.

Democrats have warned that they will investigate the sources of the hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to Trump’s library once they take control of Congress. While federal laws do not require nonprofits established to build presidential libraries to disclose their donors, critics warn that the lack of transparency could allow wealthy individuals to use donations to curry favor with the president before he leaves office.

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“The donors bankrolling his personal vanity project will have to answer to a new majority in Congress,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told CBS News.

California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, added: “Giant corporations and foreign governments should not be able to buy influence in Washington with donations to the president’s library… and any wrongdoing will be held accountable.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

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