The Deputy White House Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, Posted an AI-Generated Fantasy of Himself, Eric and Lara Trump, and an Elon Musk Cameo Spraying Champagne on a Gold Luggage Cart Through the White House to Pitbull's "Don't Stop the Party" — a "Let Them Eat Cake" Spectacle So Tone-Deaf, With Americans Unable to Afford Groceries and Gas, That Even Prominent Conservatives Called It a Gift to Democrats Before the Midterms
Late on September 26, 2026, Dan Scavino — the deputy White House chief of staff and one of Trump's longest-serving aides — posted an AI-generated video depicting a lavish after-party for the state dinner Trump had just hosted for Chinese President Xi Jinping. In the clip, Scavino, in a tuxedo, sprays champagne while riding a gilded luggage cart through the White House alongside his wife and Eric and Lara Trump, set to Pitbull's "Don't Stop the Party"; it opens with Elon Musk flipping through party photos, including one of Trump galloping through the White House on horseback, before the president himself strolls into frame. It was meant as a celebratory flex. It was received as "let them eat cake." The backlash was bipartisan, and the sharpest cuts came from the right: conservatives noted that Americans are struggling to afford groceries, gas, and mortgage payments while the "People's House" is depicted as a confetti-strewn champagne bash. Carrie Prejean Boller called it "tone deaf"; The Dispatch's Jonah Goldberg sneered that it was "precisely the midterm messaging the GOP needs from the Deputy White House Chief of Staff." With the Republican Party trying to make affordability its central pitch before November, a top White House official published a fantasy of gilded opulence — and handed the other side the image for free.