On Friday morning, much of the political world’s focus was on the looming deadline for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries: At midnight, tens of millions of low-income Americans were poised to lose their federal food assistance. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters that the issue was foremost on Donald Trump’s mind.
The president soon after suggested otherwise.
On Friday afternoon, with roughly 11 hours remaining before the SNAP deadline, the Republican used his social media platform to promote images of the new marble he’d installed in a refurbished White House bathroom. A half-hour later, he published another online item on the new marble columns at the Kennedy Center, which he said “look magnificent.”
By Friday night, the president’s day took a rather farcical turn. USA Today reported:
President Donald Trump hosted a Great Gatsby-themed party at Mar-A-Lago on Oct. 31, as multiple federal judges ruled the administration could not stop funding food aid amid the ongoing government shutdown. The party was labeled ‘A Little Party Never Killed Nobody’ according to multiple media attendees. The title was drawn from a song on the soundtrack of the 2013 movie adaptation of ‘The Great Gatsby.’
The report added that attendees were seen “mimicking ‘Roaring 20’s’ era attire, a period just before the Great Depression that historians note for its staggering income inequity.” (Historian Heather Cox Richardson added that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “skewered the immoral and meaningless lives of the very wealthy during the Jazz Age who spent their time throwing extravagant parties and laying waste to the lives of the people around them.”)
Trump is holding a Great Gatsby/Roaring 20s-themed party at his private club in Palm Beach tonight as he tries to withhold SNAP and health care subsidies from millions of Americans. (via Kellie Meyer)
— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) 2025-11-01T02:50:00.768Z
To be sure, a story like this one has a handful of notable angles, including Trump’s preoccupation with White House redecorating and renovation projects.
But I find myself stuck on the broader story the Republican seems eager to tell.
As millions of American families confronted soaring health care costs and the loss of food assistance, their wealthy president prepared to leave his mansion for another golf weekend at the glorified country club he owns.
Before he left, however, he thought it’d be a good idea to publish a series of photographs, boasting with pride about the marble bathroom he installed, complete with an above-toilet chandelier.








