Trump’s Fla. presidential library: Short on books, long on fiction

Frank Cerabino

News item: A local resident is asking Palm Beach County officials to consider making room for a presidential library as a local tourist attraction.

“I’m hoping that someone is already thinking about a Trump Presidential Library located in Palm Beach County and speaking with Trump about it,” Tom Special wrote county commissioners.

“I realize he is controversial, but all presidents are. He is a county resident,” Special said. “I’m a history buff and I think having something like that in our county would be amazing.”

■ The long-awaited Donald J. Trump Presidential Library opened today on the former site of the Palm Beach Jai-Alai fronton in Mangonia Park.

Construction had been slowed for years due to work stoppages by unpaid contractors, the lack of willing labor after years of deportation sweeps in Florida, and a lawsuit by Trump against Palm Beach County over the flight path of planes over the museum.

The 82-year-old former president, flanked by his fourth wife, Svetlana, a 25-yearold former supermodel from Uzbekistan, was on hand for the ribbon cutting.

“People are telling me that this is the best presidential library in the history of presidential libraries,” the former president said. “That’s what I’m hearing.”

Historians, architects and pundits already have had much to say about the Trump library, which features a removable roof, a Hall of Tweets, and an entire wing of courtroom depositions.

The only books in the building are for sale in the library’s gift shop, and they are the ghostwritten titles of the president’s pre-politics best-sellers as well as his presidential memoir, “The Wall Was Just a Metaphor.”

People entering the museum into the Visitor Processing and Detention Lobby first notice the dozens of flat-screen TVs on the walls, with each screen tuned to 24-hour cable news stations talking about Donald Trump, with the occasional interruption for ads selling My Pillow, gold coins, or a self-administered catheter.

The only other TV in the library is in a much-discussed alcove near the Ivanka discount shoe rack. It shows a live video feed of department store director Blake W. Nordstrom