Even the Easter Bunny is for sale now: The Trump administration has turned the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll, which dates back to the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, into an opportunity for corporate sponsorship. Bidding options range from $75,000 to $200,000. If you’re willing to pay enough, you can also score tickets to brunch with the first lady. “This is an enterprise,” one of the planners told CNN. “This is not your grandmother’s Easter Egg Roll, where people lined up outside the gate and go and roll an egg and get a little gift bag and walk out.”
This is the latest, and perhaps silliest, example that Donald Trump is selling his presidency to the highest bidder. By the end of his second term, we may well be living in the United States of Big Mac and Diet Coke, our nation’s ideals reduced to branding opportunities.
The sponsored Easter Egg Roll won’t be the first time that Trump has used the White House grounds to cater to corporations. He hosted a Tesla infomercial on the White House lawn earlier this month to help out his buddy Elon Musk, whose electric vehicle company is suffering from weak sales, a plummeting stock price, and embarrassing recalls. But I suppose it was the least Trump could do for someone who put $288 million into making him president again.
We knew this was coming because Trump told us so. During the 2024 campaign, he wasn’t shy about making demands of corporations. He let the oil and gas industry know in no uncertain terms that he expected them to furnish him with $1 billion for his campaign. He took in over $10 million from crypto groups and, unsurprisingly, has since been extraordinarily friendly toward that industry, promoting the idea of a “crypto strategic reserve” that would open the country up to all the volatility of digital currencies without producing any discernible benefits beyond those that would go to his backers. Trump made sure to make a killing for himself too, in the crypto market, with both him and Melania releasing their own meme coins right before he took office.
From day one of Trump’s administration, it was clear that ethical considerations would take a back seat to financial ones, resulting in a pay-to-play atmosphere. He sold inaugural seats for $1 million “donations” (an extortion racket, really), reserving the best spots at the Capitol ceremony for a line of billionaires and corporate heads, indicating—literally and symbolically—that they will be the ones in the front row for the next four years.
It’s easy to sell your soul to the highest bidder when you’re an empty shell. Trump’s nature has always been transactional. His supporters view this as an asset: Because Trump stands for nothing, they believe, he won’t be influenced by ideological concerns and instead will make the best deals he can for the nation. What they don’t see is that the nation will always come second to Trump himself and that he’ll quickly sell out our collective future for his personal present. They also miss that money—with the possible exception of acts of vengeance—will always be Trump’s primary motivator, meaning that the welfare of the poor, care for the elderly, and the preservation of lives through programs like USAID will always take a back seat to corporate profits. So will the fate of Eastern Europe. Will America continue to support Ukraine? It depends on how much they’re willing to give us as far as natural resources. Teslas can’t run on spilt blood, after all.
Rather than make decisions based on sound reasoning, evidence, and morality, Trump will always do what’s best for his own pockets and those of his billionaire pals. Though he’d initially supported a ban on TikTok, he suddenly reversed himself after winning the election, declaring that he no longer sees the company as a major security threat. It just might have had something to do with the fact that Jeff Yass, a major Trump supporter and by far the top Republican donor last cycle, has a stake in the app’s parent company, ByteDance. It also didn’t hurt that TikTok execs were putting up money and throwing parties for the Trump inauguration.
The same holds true for Trump’s immigration policies. While the administration is trying to strike fear into undocumented workers, ending asylum programs, selling off Venezuelans to work in El Salvador’s notorious prison system, violating basic human rights in its treatment of Colombians, canceling the CHNV program for over half a million Latinos looking to become American citizens, and preparing a brand-new “travel ban” to target immigrants from predominantly Black and Muslim countries, Trump has somehow found it in his heart to welcome certain immigrants—those willing to pay $5 million for a visa “gold card.” He’s even suggested calling it the “Trump card,” which is fitting not only because it would allow Russian oligarchs to jump the line but because it also symbolizes the special privilege he’s had throughout his life.
Forget “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Now it’s “Give me your money, your gold, your stock options, and I’ll get you in.” If only Mahmoud Khalil was filthy rich, he might not be in ICE custody right now.
You see, free speech also carries a price tag. For Columbia University, the price is evidently $400 million, which Trump withheld until the university agreed to become a Big Brother state wherein students will be constantly watched for any sign they disagree with the administration. Those students are learning a very severe lesson: Money talks, and you had better keep your mouth shut until you have it.
In fairness, the Columbia charade shows that Trump isn’t the only person who thinks that everything is for sale. Like Columbia, other universities are also falling in line, staying quiet even though a recent survey found that 94 percent of university leaders felt Trump is a threat to academic freedom. They’re putting dollars before decency, cents before sense.
It’s not just a selling out of principles. It’s a selling out of the American Idea—the elevation of financial considerations above all else. Once we buy into the notion that everything is transactional and that money represents the total value and true meaning of all that we see, we lose our moral compass—which may be what Trump is counting on.
We also don’t know where exactly this ends. One has to wonder whether the White House itself could soon be branded. Why not make the Green Room produce some green by renaming it the Amazon Room? Jeff Bezos might be willing to pony up another $40 million for a second Melania documentary if that’s thrown in as a sweetener. Or perhaps the State Dining Room can be brought to us by Uber Eats. Certainly, it’s a shock that the China Room hasn’t been renamed already. We may be just a single payment away from Trump insisting that we all start calling porcelain plates “Brazil” or “Azerbaijan.” Google would have to go through and change its algorithm to reflect it in search results, as they did with their maps for “Gulf of America.”
Remember, this is a man who named one of his children after a luxury jewelry brand. And right now, he’s branding all of us. Who winds up a winner or loser will depend on what we have to offer. For the poor, the disabled, members of the LGBTQ+ community, liberals, and people who don’t view the purpose of life as to make as much money as possible, we’ll find ourselves completely expendable.
The same can be said for our democratic institutions. Anything that isn’t making a profit for the corporate class is on DOGE’s chopping block, no matter how many people it helps or what good it does in the world.
Freedom is not free. We’ll pay a heavy price for Trump’s selling out of America.