WASHINGTON – In a rare interview in 1994, President Donald Trump’s mother described the first time her husband, New York developer Fred Trump, saw the black personal helicopter her son had purchased.
“Of course, the first thing my husband saw was that it had Trump written on the helicopter. He was happy,” the late Mary MacLeod Trump said with a laugh in an interview with Irish public broadcaster Radio Tairific Eireann.
The president is truly his father’s son.
Throughout his career as a businessman, Trump has tended to view every tangible thing as a branding opportunity, including putting his name on hotels, golf courses, wine and steaks. Even the Bible.
Trump, who is in his second term as president, is trying to highlight his accomplishments by naming government agencies after him. But experts say what passes for branding in the business world goes against democratic values for a sitting president to put his name on federal property or policy initiatives.
Made possible by his appointees and admirers, the 79-year-old commander-in-chief’s name is attached to decades-old institutions such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the United States Institute of Peace. He also has his name attached to major policies such as TrumpRX, Trump Gold Card, Trump Coin, and Trump Account.
Over the past few months, federal buildings such as the Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Justice have unfurled large banners featuring President Trump’s face.
Lawmakers are trying to feed Trump’s ego by introducing legislation that would banish him to Mount Rushmore.
Latest canvas? The Treasury Department announced in March that Trump’s signature would appear on future U.S. banknotes to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
“There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic accomplishments of our great nation and President Donald J. Trump than with a U.S. dollar bill bearing his name,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “It’s only fitting that this historic currency be issued on its 50th anniversary.”
Trump occupies Manhattan
His penchant for putting his name on things comes as no surprise to Barbara Ress, a former executive vice president at the Trump Organization who oversaw construction. She worked on large-scale projects such as Trump Tower in the 1980s.
“He inherited it from his father, Fred Trump,” Mr. Leth said of Mr. Trump, a developer who built thousands of apartments and row houses in Queens and Brooklyn after World War II. His largest project, Trump Village, built in 1964, was the first project to bear the family’s name.
“He (the president) was raised to believe that he was different and that his family was different, and being different meant being better than everyone else and being more important than everyone else,” said Les, who worked as a top aide to President Trump for 18 years from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
While his father’s business was limited to suburban areas, Queens-raised Donald Trump set his sights on Manhattan. He made a splash in the 1970s by transforming the crumbling Hotel Commodore into the Grand Hyatt. The first building to feature his family’s name in gold letters was his second project, Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, completed in 1983.
By 2015, more than 15 buildings in New York City had Trump’s name, but some of the signs were later removed by the Architectural Association.
“He put his name on every building I built during my stay,” Les said, adding that the superyacht he bought from the Saudi billionaire was renamed the Trump Princess.
When he acquired the Eastern Airlines Shuttle from Texas Air Lines in 1988, he renamed the plane the Trump Shuttle.
What did she think about this naming controversy?
“So what’s the best, highest quality, most extravagant, most important name you can think of? Seriously, Trump,” Les said with a wry grin.
Experts say it’s reminiscent of authoritarian regimes
Branding in business matters in governance.
Experts say President Trump’s plastering of his name and likeness on federal policies and real estate is reminiscent of authoritarian regimes and is central to the development of a “cult of personality.”
For example, portraits of North Korea’s founder and supreme leader, Kim Il-sung, and Kim Jong-il, the father of current leader Kim Jong-un, must be installed in public places such as train stations, hospitals, schools, and factories.
According to art historian Anita Pisz, portraits of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s to 1953, appeared everywhere during the period, displayed on buildings and streets, carried in parades and woven into carpets. He analyzed the construction of Joseph Stalin’s public persona in his book “Stalin’s Personality Cult in Soviet Posters, 1929-1953: Archetypes”. invention and fabrication. ”
“Modern personality cults are possible thanks to the leader’s ability to spread the image far and wide and saturate the public sphere with ‘cult products,'” Pisch writes in his book.
Jeffrey Engel, founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said that throughout history, when countries started putting living leaders on their currency and flags or putting their pictures up everywhere, it was almost always associated with dictatorships.
“The leader is teeth “These messages are about the nation, and in our country, the leaders are not the nation; the people are the nation,” he said.
“There is no precedent in American history.”
Engel, who has written or edited 13 books on American foreign policy, said there are two reasons why a president’s name is traditionally only added to things like buildings after the president’s death.
“First of all, because it’s gauche,” he said. “Second, and more importantly, this country remains a constitutional republic.”
Even presidents who think very highly of themselves still recognize that they are only holding the office temporarily, Engel said. “Basically, from the moment they took the job, they held the warmth for the next person.”
“We’ve run out of synonyms for the word unprecedented when it comes to Trump,” Engel said. “There’s no precedent in American history for even the most self-serving president to put his name on things.”
President Trump has often pointed out that the name change was someone else’s idea. He said that the board of directors had decided on the Trump-Kennedy core. After dismissing all 18 members of the board, he hand-picked those to fill their seats and installed himself as chairman.
“He’s made it very clear that the way to gain power and influence in the administration is to admire and admire him,” Engel said. “So of course the people he appoints will do that.”
President Trump has said the $400 million White House banquet hall, which is being funded by private donors and U.S. companies, is scheduled to be completed by 2028, before he leaves office.
So far, the president has not said what name the 90,000-square-foot addition he has championed will be given if legal hurdles can be cleared.
Asked if he had any guesses, Mr. Engel said, “I’d wager that some banquet hall has the word Trump in its name.”
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is USA TODAY’s White House correspondent. You can follow her at X @SwapnaVenugopal..
