Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
“First and foremost, I’m a real estate person. And that’s what I love the most.”
“I look at the real estate. I’m always looking at the real estate. I don’t know, I’ll never get it out of my blood.”
“I love people that are in the real estate business. I have a little bit of a proclivity for it.”
That, it goes without saying, are quotes from President Donald Trump about what is evidently something dear to his heart.
So, it is probably not a stretch to claim that he probably has a better understanding of real estate than any president since George Washington who, as you may recall from Schoolhouse Rock, was a land surveyor at age 17.
But this knowledge of real estate and his recently announced “Warrior Dividend” seem to be at odds with one another — but in keeping with his modus operandi, which is to go for the glitz and skip the reality on the ground.
The checks for $1,776 to US military service members makes great TV.
But because not even Donald Trump can manifest money out of thin air, it had to come from somewhere. (No, not from the tariffs.)
The funds are coming from the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) defense appropriation, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. There are $2.9 billion appropriated for BAH. The Warrior Dividend checks are going to take $2.6 billion.
According to the most recent Consumer Price Index, shelter (a.k.a., housing) increased 3%. Household furnishings are up 4.6%.
So, for our military living off-base (like all other Americans), costs are rising. They need supplemental assistance, which is the point of the BAH. But now only 10% of the BAH funds are still in place.
While some might argue that it is just as well to give the military personnel the money and let them decide what to do with it, presumably the BAH was written into the bill because there was a very specific determination made that it was necessary to help out with housing allowances.
But that doesn’t make good TV.
And Donald Trump knows that.
He doesn’t seem to know that there are a lot of Americans that are facing rising costs in many areas of their daily lives and it doesn’t matter how many times he claims that gasoline is under $2 a gallon in some places (places, evidently, only he knows about) and that reduced energy costs will cut the prices of things like groceries (the latest
Consumer Price Index shows an 11.3% increase in fuel oil and 9.1% increase in natural gas), the price of food has gone up 2.6%.
But it is all about performance for Donald Trump. While housing costs go up (and let’s not lose sight of the fact that the total effective tariff on Canadian softwood lumber — which is used to build things like houses — is approximately 45%) he has overseen the demolition of the perfectly good East Wing of the White House so that he can have an ornate 90,000-square foot ballroom built. Is that something the US needed?
Many Americans have their “ballroom” experiences in VFW and Eagles Clubs halls and the folks that run them are wondering about affording the paint to brighten up the place — and know that paint prices have risen by as much as 7%.
On the subject of performance, there is the newly named “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
The building, originally established by Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 as the “National Cultural Center,” was renamed, through an act of Congress, to the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” after the assassination of the 35th president.
Kennedy, among other less noble things, was known to be a patron of the arts. He championed the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts. Trump’s 2026 budget includes its elimination.
What has Donald Trump done to deserve having his name attached to the center that has had people like Mikhail Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharp appear on its stage, beside his repeatedly performing the goofy grandpa dance that he often does in public venues?
(Some may protest: “But it was the center’s board of trustees who made the change!”, don’t kid yourself: he stacked the board so it is like he did it himself.)
In his televised presentation the other evening Donald Trump continued to insist that things are what they aren’t (nor what they can be, like the 600% reduction in prescription drug costs).
He proclaimed: “Many families will be saving between $11,000 and $20,000 dollars a year,” but he didn’t explain who these families are, nor how this will be achieved — and given that the median household income in the US is presently $83,730, it is hard to imagine how many — if any — are going to have savings on the order of 13% to 24%, especially given what is going on in the economy.
But it sounds good and makes good TV.
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, writing primarily for the right column.