Donald Trump's 24 hours as he goes full dictator and erects gold statue to himself

Donald Trump's 24 hours as he goes full dictator and erects gold statue to himselfTrump has been in full 90s dictator mode, erecting a gold statue to himself, having his FBI raid the offices of his enemies and securing a very weird deal to name an airport. Here's what you need to knowCommentsNewsopinionMikey Smith Deputy Political Editor20:53, 07 May 2026Updated 20:55, 07 May 2026View 3 Images(Image: Michele Eve Sandberg/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock) For a day when Donald Trump has - unexpectedly - been out of the public eye, there's been a lot of nonsense coming out of his White House. ‌ A visit by the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was mysteriously curtailed - perhaps an indication that the apparent thaw in relations between the two leaders had been shortlived. Meanwhile Trump has been in full 90s dictator mode - using a loophole to try and wriggle out of a defamation payout, securing a deeply weird deal to put his name on an airport and raiding the office of a Democrat enemy and erecting a gold statue of himself. ‌ Meanwhile, in Trumpworld ‌ Trump touts his wild UFC birthday partyCan Trump see the sea?His third surgeon general pick has some problemsKash Patel has been giving out bottles of boozeHere's what you need to know 1. Trump event with foreign leader mysteriously cancelledDonald Trump met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva today at the White House. But a joint event in the Oval Office, which was supposed to happen at 11.15am DC time, never took place. A live stream of the event was set up and kept running with a title card for three hours before being quietly switched off without explanation. ‌ Shortly after President da Silva left the White House, Trump posted on Truth Social: "Just concluded my meeting with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the very dynamic President of Brazil. We discussed many topics, including Trade and, specifically, Tariffs. The meeting went very well. Our Representatives are scheduled to get together to discuss certain key elements. Additional meetings will be scheduled over the coming months, as necessary." View 3 ImagesBoth leaders said the meeting went well - it's unclear why the Oval Office event did not go ahead(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images) The two leaders' relationship has been particularly frosty over the last year. The Trump administration imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods and tied the measure to the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro for his involvement in a coup plot. Lula sharply defended Brazil's sovereignty and Trump later loosened tariffs on Brazil as part of his effort to lower consumer costs for Americans. Trump and Lula started mending fences at the United Nations General Assembly in September, which was followed by their first private meeting in Malaysia in October and subsequent phone conversations. But the unexpected cancellation of the Oval Office event could signal a further breakdown in communications. ‌ Da Silva said at a press conference later that the meeting had been good, and that the two had shared some jokes. "Laughing is better than with an ugly face," he said - adding that the talks had addressed some tricky subjects. 2. Trump erects "gold" statue of himselfIn perhaps the most inevitable news of the day, Donald Trump has erected a giant gold statue of himself on one of his golf courses. Posting an image of the gaudy sculpture, he said on Truth Social: "The Real Deal - GOLD - At Doral in Miami. Put there by great American Patriots!!!" For the record, it's made of bronze, coated in gold leaf. ‌ View 3 ImagesIt's pretty rough(Image: Michele Eve Sandberg/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock) 3. Trump touts mad UFC birthday bashDonald Trump unveiled new details of the UFC cage match that is taking place on the White House lawn next month for his birthday Flanked by four UFC fighters who will take part, Trump showed off renderings of the plans for the bizarre event, including a huge cage octagon just a few steps from the Oval Office. He said about 5,000 invited guests would be seated on the South Lawn for the fight, with an additional 75,000-100,000 people in the "fan zone" on the Ellipse, the park adjacent to the White House grounds. "These are real warriors," Trump said of the fighters. "When we talk about warriors, these are warriors. "These are the toughest people. These are the greatest fighters in the world. They come from all over the world. Some come from extreme poverty. Not too many people come from Fifth Avenue, for the most part." Of the unprecedented event, Trump said: "We're having a big fight. It's never gonna happen again. Never happened before." UFC fighter Justin Gaethje, who will take part in the headline title fight, praised Trump's support for the sport saying he had been a "big part" of having it enter the mainstream. "They thought we were just absolute animals," Gathje said. "Well, they were right about that," Trump replied. ‌ You can read all the details about Trump's mad UFC birthday party here 4. Trump's wild airport dealDonald Trump, as we all know, has a favourite hobby. And that hobby is taking things that someone else made and slapping his own name on them. He's done it with countless items over the years, including vodka, bottled water, frozen steaks, gaudy sneakers, gumball-looking watches, rickety buildings, the Kennedy Centre and his autobiography. And now Palm Beach Airport, the nearest landing strip to Mar A Lago, is being renamed "President Donald J Trump International Airport". It's not super unusual for airports to be named after politicians. Washington DC has two, Ronald Reagan National Airport and Dulles International, named after John Foster Dulles, who was Eisenhower's Secretary of State. ‌ What's unusual in this case is the trademark deal struck by the Trump family to licence his name. For a start, it's weird for an airport naming to involve a trademark agreement at all - although the deal does state the family won't profit from branded merchandise sold on-site. But it gives the Trump family control over any biographical material presented at the airport about Trump. And it requires the airport to pick a Trump-approved vendor to provide any merch. It also doesn't stop Trump profiting from airport merch sold outside of the airport premises. And given Trump has already unveiled the branding and logo for the new airport, you can bet your boots there will be merch. The name change is expected to take place on July 1. 5. See vs SeaAnother habit of Trump's is saying "a lot of people" when he means himself. So from this detour he took during remarks to a group of military families yesterday, we can assume someone recently tried to tell him something about the sea, and he misunderstood. ‌ "By sea, by ocean, by water," he said. "A lot of people say, "what do you mean by sea? Is it see? Like vision?" No, it's sea, SEA." Content cannot be displayed without consent6. ICE bosses threatens to invade New YorkMarkwayne Mullin, Trump's Homeland Security Secretary has threatened to flood New York with ICE agents in order to root out, arrest and deport undocumented people. But speaking to (who else?) Fox News, Mullin insisted this would not be another "Minneanapolis" (sic) - but instead see ICE go after the "felons" and "the worst of the worst." ‌ New York Governor Kathy Hochul has said Trump promised there would be no surge of federal forces into the city unless she asked for it, adding: “I’m not asking.” But also speaking on Fox yesterday, Border Czar and ICE boss Tom Homan said: "Well Governor Hochul, I'm not asking either. I said it. We're going to do it." "You're going to see more ICE agents than you've ever seen before. So, congratulations," he added. 7. No Trump bounce from shootingTrump saw absolutely no boost in the polls in the days following the third attempt on his life at the White House Correspondents Dinner. While a post-assassination attempt bounce is not historically a certainty, Trump did get a massive wave of sympathy and support after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024 - which many believe catapulted him back to the Oval Office. This time around, Trump's approval ratings have, if anything, gone down in the days since the incident. Even Rasmussen Reports, who are normally pretty soft towards Trump, have the President's approval falling from 44% the day after the shooting to 41% yesterday. Oof. ‌ 8. Trump Surgeon General pick deletes posts criticising himTrump's struggles to find a Surgeon General pick continue. His first, Janette Nesheiwat, was shelved because MAGA influencer Laura Loomer told the President she was "ideologically incompatible" with him. His second pic, MAHA dietitian Casey Means, found it impossible to progress through the confirmation process due to her views on vaccines. And now his third pick, Nicole Saphier, a radiologist, author and (of course) Fox News contributor, has been hard at work scrubbing her Twitter account of posts which... kind of make her look ideologically incompatible. They include criticisms of the Administration's vaccine policies, a suggestion that they were covering up America losing it's "measles-free" status until after the midterms - and her saying she had "questions" about the President's still unexplained MRI scan. 9. The stories about Kash Patel and booze get even more on the noseThe FBI has been forced to deny launching a probe into the Atlantic's Sarah Fitzpatrick, the journalist who broke the claims about director Kash Patel's behaviour and alcohol consumption. MSNow had cited two sources who told them the bureau was undertaking a criminal investigation into both a leaker and the Atlantic's reporter. Patel furiously denied the claims in the article and filed a $250 million (£184m) lawsuit against the magazine and Fitzpatrick herself. But if you wanted an indication of whether the Atlantic, which is famous for its fastidious fact-checking process, had been rattled by the legal action, look no further than the story they published last night. ‌ It claims Patel has been handing out personalised bottles of whisky to friends and colleagues. The bottles of booze which appear to be standard store-bought bottles of Woodford Reserve (a nice drop to be sure, but not anything wildly extravagant), with Patel's name and logo printed on the back. An FBI spokesman said: "The bottles in question are part of a tradition in the FBI that started well over a decade ago, long before Director Patel arrived. Senior Bureau officials have long exchanged commemorative items in formal gift settings consistent with ethics rules. Director Patel has followed all applicable ethical guidelines and pays for any personal gift himself." 10. The FBI raided a Virginia Democrat's office...for reasonsThe FBI raided the office of Virginia's Democrat state Senate leader's hometown office and her neighboring cannabis shop over a "corruption" investigation, it emerged last night. The probe into Louise Lucas is said to have launched under the Biden administration, and relate to the cannabis dispensary near her home. At the same time, Lucas was one of the architects of Virginia's plan to re-draw constituency boundaries to favour Democrats in retaliation for Trump doing so in several Republican states, leading many to suspect the timing and targeting of Lucas was an attempt at intimidation by the administration. "Today's actions by federal agents are about far more than one state senator; they are about power and who is allowed to use it on behalf of the people," Lucas said in a statement. "What we saw fits a clear pattern from this administration: when challenged, they try to intimidate and silence the voices of those who stand up to them." Lucas, a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana, has said the store sells legal hemp and CBD products. It has drawn scrutiny from local media amid allegations that some products were mislabeled. Virginia has legalized pot possession but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state. ‌ It's also worth noting that Fox News managed to get a reporter and a camera - for some reason their London Correspondent - there in time to see the raid taking place, indicating someone inside the administration wanted to see it on TV. 11. Trump tries to wriggle out of paying out in $83 million defamation caseDonald Trump is trying everything he can to wriggle out of paying damages to charity after losing a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. The case followed a $5m (£3.7m) judgement Carroll won when a judge found Trump had sexually abused and defamed her. She then brought a further defamation suit after Trump called her a liar over the case, and a jury ruled in her favour. Trump is appealing the ruling. And in the meantime, the Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to allow it to swap in for Trump as the party responsible in the case - because the federal government cannot be sued for defamation. While the decision to rule against Trump - who was president at the time he made the remarks - was unusual, allowing such a swap in order to torpedo a trial and verdict already delivered would be extraordinary. Article continues belowMeanwhile, Trump is seeking to avoid paying out on the judgement while the Supreme Court decides whether to review the case. Carroll's lawyers aren't opposing this measure as long as he increases the bond to allow for interest. Last week, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump's request to reconsider a panel's ruling upholding the defamation verdict. Trump has also asked the court to overturn the original $5m defamation judgement.