With the exception of maybe Elon Musk and a handful of other megalomaniacs, it’s hard to imagine that there could be a worse boss to have than Donald Trump — but, oh, just think of the stories. And if you happen to be Desiree Thompson Sayle, a White House aide who served at the pleasure of the 45th president, you’d have a whopper of a memory and possibly a mountain of chiropractor bills.
As Raw Story reports, based on a feature that ran in The Washington Post, the final days of Trump’s presidency were an absolute sh*t show. As the White House was being readied for its shiny new occupants, the outgoing president — who still has not conceded the 2020 election — was learning that there are limits to what the U.S. government will pay for. And footing the bill to move a 300-pound portrait of said president (nope, that’s not it above) from Washington, D.C. to Palm Beach, Florida was not one of them. A few months after Joe Biden was sworn in, Sayle was asked to assist.
The Washington Post obtained documents that traced Sayle’s attempts to get this obnoxiously oversized monstrosity moved with other Trump belongings with the help of the General Services Administration. In April 2021, Sayle sent an email to the GSA asking for their help in transporting an “enormous” portrait of the former president, which was six-foot-eight-inches tall and weighed almost as much as Trump himself.
“I’m sorry to ask,” Sayle wrote. “This is a weird one!”
As the art had been gifted to Trump following his presidency, it was considered a personal belonging and therefore not something the GSA handles.
Several months later, Sayle sent another email in which she shared that she planned to move the painting using her personal vehicle. “We are loading the large portrait received after the 21st on a Penske truck to transport to my house so I can put it on my moving van,” she wrote.
Though there’s no email confirming its safe delivery, we’ll assume no art thieves had the audacity — or upper body strength — to make off with the piece while it made the 1,000-mile trek south.
(Via Raw Story)