Salman Rushdie: I long for the demolition of Trump’s vanity ballroom and his legacy

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Author Sir Salman Rushdie has said he longs for the day when Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom and his proposed “Arc de Trump” are torn down.

Sir Salman denounced the “horrifying” behaviour of the “thin-skinned” US president and claimed the “cult” he had created was beginning to crumble.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent editor-in-chief Geordie Greig, he said he believed that once Trump was removed from power his beloved ballroom and triumphal arch would be removed too.

The “demolition of Trump” would be a day to celebrate, he said.

Sir Salman, who has lived in America since 2000 and holds British and American citizenship, said: “I look forward to the day when there is no more Trump and every ugly thing he's built gets torn down.”

He continued: “When the ballroom gets destroyed… this ridiculous triumphal arch… when that comes down, I think there'll be a moment of the demolition of Trump, which will be very pleasing to see.”

The proposed 250 feet triumphal arch in Washington – termed the ‘Arc de Trump’ by some – includes a golden-winged Lady Liberty on top, flanked by two golden eagles.

Trump had the east wing of the White House bulldozed last year to make way for a 400 million dollar ballroom currently under construction.

An attempt by America’s National Trust for Historic Preservation to stop the project was rejected by the Supreme Court last month in a 5-4 ruling in favour of Trump. The organisation argued the ballroom was an ‘aesthetic, cultural and historical’ affront.

Sir Salman called Trump a “brilliant liar” and claimed the President would break his promise to give $5,000 to all US adults if his Republican Party wins the coming mid term elections: “He stiffs people all the time.”

Sir Salman faced death threats for years over his 1988 book The Satanic Verses and only narrowly survived after being stabbed in a frenzied attack in New York in 2022. His assailant Hadi Matar, jailed for 25 years for the assault, praised Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini for having called for Rushdie’s execution in the 1980s.

Sir Salman’s interview marks the launch of his new documentary – Knife, directed by Alex Gibney – about the attack, which resulted in him losing his right eye.

The film is based on his book with the same stark title. One critic called the documentary “intensely upsetting, inspiring and affecting.”

Sir Salman, who also wrote Midnight’s Children, moved to the US after spending a decade in hiding in Britain as a result of the fatwa against him issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini – partly because of the US First Amendment that pledges to uphold freedom of expression and religion.

He says Trump has made a mockery of that amendment.

“We have a brilliant liar in the White House,” he said. “It's the only thing he does well.

“The age of Trump, which includes the Biden presidency, has been a very dark time and which things have happened in America that I never believed were possible to happen.

“Attacks on our First Amendment values, free expression, hostility towards journalists and comedians. The idea that the head of the most powerful country in the world is most worried about jokes about him being told on late night television, the enormous power of the presidency that is used because of the thin skinnedness of the occupant of the of the Oval Office - it’s just horrifying.”

Sir Salman dismissed Trump’s offer to give all American adults $5,000 if the Republicans win the mid term elections in November.

“One of the things we know about Mr Trump is that he never keeps his promises, and he stiffs people all the time. So if anybody is foolish enough to vote for him because they think they're going to get $5,000 – it will never show up.”

Sir Salman said he believed the mid term elections will show Americans are turning against Trump, including his own hitherto fanatical Maga supporters.

“I feel there's a change in the wind. I think there's a lot of people, even from the cult that he created around himself who are beginning to be disillusioned. And we're going to find out… in the midterm elections.”

In his wide ranging interview, Sir Salman also opened his heart about falling in love with fifth wife, American poet and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths, nearly 30 years his junior, in a “cute” Hollywood-style chance encounter when he walked into a plate glass door.

He said some of the senior police tasked with guarding him in Britain after the 1989 Iranian fatwa were “reluctant” to protect him – partly through “racism.”

He described why it is harder now to be an immigrant in modern Britain than when he arrived here as a child – and why he still holds a grudge against one of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory ministers for accusing him of likening the UK to Nazi Germany.

And he explained why he has never read the book claimed by many to be the greatest English classic novel, George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

Recalling his ten years under police protection in the UK in the 1990s, Sir Salman said: “The people actually doing the protection, the police officers who were with me were always very sympathetic and professional, many became long term friends. The problems were at higher echelons of command, where you felt they were doing the protection reluctantly.”

Asked if that was the result of racism, his opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s government or over stretched police resources, he replied: “All of the above.

“This was the height of the Thatcher government. It was well known that I wasn't a supporter of the administration. To be fair, Margaret Thatcher authorised and kept going the protection for a long time. But that was the extent of her support. There were members of her senior members of her cabinet who said very hostile things about me, some of which were not true.

“For example, Sir Geoffrey Howe [Thatcher’s foreign secretary] said my novel [Satanic Verses] compared Britain to Hitler's Germany – which it does not. That was the kind of thing that was being put out there. A kind of self was being created for me, which wasn't very likeable. And a lot of people fell for that.”

Sir Salman, 79, who was born in India to non-practising Muslims and is an atheist, moved to Britain aged 13 when he attended Rugby School. He defended the role of immigrants in modern Britain.

“It’s harder to be an immigrant today. There is a whole political rhetoric against immigrants as if they are the problem. Whereas actually, the country cannot run its hospitals or harvest its fruit or do a whole range of things that are done by immigrants.

“I've always believed that immigration is a net gain for a society.”

He deplores the large scale deportations of immigrants enforced by Trump and echoed by the likes of Nigel Farage.

“The world is international now,” he said. The idea that “somehow you can shut the door and be happy in your own little corner and not allow the world in” was absurd.

“Every country has the right to control who comes in. But in my lifetime immigrant communities have enormously enriched this country. More chicken tikka masala is eaten than roast beef and Yorkshire puddings.

“The Indian community is not a drain on the country's resources: it is a contributor.”

Sir Salman recounted the bizarre manner in which he met Rachel Eliza, who played a key role in making his new film, at a literary festival in America ten years ago.

“There was an after party on the roof terrace of a hotel. I said, ‘let's go out and look at the city at night’. It was not a chat-up line – but it wasn’t entirely not a chat-up line. There were these sliding glass doors… I didn't realise that the one on the left wasn't open. And I smashed into it… I told her that she literally knocked me out.

“I went down to get a taxi home and she was worried whether I was OK. So she came down to make sure that I got into a taxi. Then she got into the taxi. And that was that. They call it a Hollywood meeting - cute.”

Sir Salman reflected: “It has made the last decade of my life very rich. To find that level of love relatively late in life, you are very lucky. It is blind luck. Love comes at you when you're not looking for it. It whacks you over the back of the head – or in my case, the nose!”

As well as writing every day, he is a voracious reader, but confesses to never having completed Middlemarch.

“Middlemarch has been my biggest problem. I have tried to read it a number of times, I’ve got halfway, but I get bored.”

Unlikely though it may seem Booker Prize winning author Sir Salman attributes camp 1970s and 1980s British TV comedian Dick Emery for one of his first creative triumphs.

At the time struggling young author Sir Salman was working for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency tasked with coming up with catchy slogans. He dreamed up “naughty but nice” to sell fresh cream cakes.

He remembers his bosses’ initial expression of horror. “They said ‘you're telling people that cream cakes made them fat’. I said ‘they know that’.

“Dick Emery had this slogan at the time. ‘You are awful. But I like you.’ It was a variation of that theme.”