Trump's Other Taxpayer-Funded Grift

After a lifetime of grifting, bankruptcies, and shell games, Donald Trump has finally found the perfect mark: the taxpayer.

Palm Beach International Airport is a major public asset, owned and operated for the public, serving the region north of Fort Lauderdale. But now, Florida Republicans and Palm Beach County have turned this public asset, located just a few miles from Mar-a-Lago, into a Trump Organization branding platform: the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.

On March 31st, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation mandating the renaming in Trump’s honor. Notably, the law says that this name change is merely “pending FAA approval.” That means the final blessing will come from Trump’s own federal government approving the naming of a public airport after the sitting president.

The second joke is even darker. Palm Beach County, which leans Democratic, will not be able to simply undo this later because the state has seized the naming rights for Florida’s major commercial airports for itself. If a future county commission decides that this taxpayer-funded Trump branding exercise is humiliating, corrupt, or just gross, too bad. And if a future FAA becomes less MAGA-friendly, the name will already be locked into state law unless Tallahassee changes it. The county gets the bill, the embarrassment, and the Trump trademark agreement; the state gets the power; and Trump gets his name bolted onto public infrastructure five miles from Mar-a-Lago.

https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/trumps-other-taxpayer-funded-grift