WASHINGTON – In a rare 1994 interview, President Donald Trump’s mother described the first time her husband, New York developer Fred Trump, saw the black personal helicopter their son had bought.
“Of course, my husband, first thing he saw was the helicopter said TRUMP on it. He was satisfied,” the late Mary MacLeod Trump said, laughing, in an interview with Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland's public service broadcaster.
The president is very much his father’s son.
Throughout his career as a businessman, Trump has tended to view all manner of tangible things as branding opportunities – putting his name on hotels, golf courses, wines and steaks. Even a Bible.
In his second term as POTUS, Trump has sought to burnish his legacy by naming governmental entities after himself, too. But what passes for branding in commercial circles is antithetical to democratic values when a sitting president puts his name on federal property and policy initiatives, say experts.
