It reads like the script of a dream: the City of Light blinks beneath you as you sit atop the Eiffel Tower, awaiting the next course prepared by one of the world's great chefs.
This is scheduled to happen to President Donald Trump, and for him it could be a nightmare.
New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman—otherwise known as the "reporter Trump can't quit"—pointed out on Twitter Monday that the scheduled dinner between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron "doesn't sound at all like a meal POTUS will enjoy."
There are myriad reasons Trump might not love it. First: he and Macron aren't exactly chummy (unlike the French president and his new BFF, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau). Trump openly pulled for Macron's campaign opponent, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, and he withdrew the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate agreement. (The dinner, reportedly, could be used by the French leader to push his counterpart to reconsider that decision.)
But Trump might also hate the actual dinner itself, the literal food on the table at the swanky Eiffel Tower restaurant that will reportedly be closed to the public during the meal Thursday. The Local France, citing the French magazine Paris Match, wrote that the meal prepared by renowned chef Alain Ducasse at the The Jules Verne restaurant will be a tasting menu that typically costs some $260 (and that's before drinks). The Local wrote that lobster and caviar would likely appear on the table, while The Washington Post added that the exact meal was not yet known but the tasting menu typically features things like "caviar-laden golden potatoes from Noirmoutier...and pan-seared raspberries and apricots, doused in homemade almond ice cream."
That could prove a challenge for Trump, who has a diet perhaps more typical of a middle-school lunchroom than a billionaire's boardroom. The more basic the food, the better: Staples of the Trump diet include steak charred to a crisp doused in ketchup, a steady stream of Diet Coke and, at least on the campaign trail, heaps and heaps of fast food—McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, especially. Outside of that, he enjoys meat loaf (so much so he once forced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to order it) and some of the meals made by his first lady, Melania Trump. "She has a lot of imagination," he once told The New York Times. "She makes spaghetti and meat sauce."
Even if Trump finds a way through the fancy meal—in Saudi Arabia, for instance, the the menu was adjusted to ensure he would have his beloved steak and ketchup—the setting itself might bother him. It's previously been suggested Trump doesn't like steep steps—because he often traverses them quite carefully, and he awkwardly clutched the hand of British Prime Minister Teresa May while walking down a slope. He also declined to take a cable car in Masada, Israel.
Videos showing the elevator ride to The Jules Verne—which features panoramic views of Paris from the Eiffel Tower—depict a wide-open look at the ascent to the restaurant's stunning location. That might awake Trump's reported fears. But, then again, his favorite place in the world is on the 26th floor of a New York City tower bearing his name—so, maybe not.
