'For kids who can't read good': Conservative mocks Trump library with 'Zoolander' zinger

President Donald Trump’s newly-unveiled presidential library reminded one conservative commentator of a famous joke from a 2001 movie in which Trump appeared.

“Earlier this week Eric Trump released an AI-generated sizzle reel unveiling the . . . plan? . . . concept? . . . concepts of a plan? . . . for the forthcoming Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum,” wrote The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last. In an illustration below his denunciation of the sketchy fundraising behind the garish tower, rendered in AI against the Miami skyline, Last described the potential 2.6-acre institution as the “Trump Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good.” This refers to a famous joke in the comedy film “Zoolander” during which Ben Stiller’s titular protagonist tries to open a literacy center with an ungrammatical name.

In that same film, notably, Trump and future First Lady Melania Trump had a cameo in which Trump said, “Without Derek Zoolander, male modeling wouldn't be what it is today.”

“Zoolander,” which was famously advertised throughout New York City on Sept. 11th, kept Trump in the limelight at a time when his celebrity was on the wane following several high-profile bankruptcies. His success with the reality TV series “The Apprentice” was still four years away, and Trump’s investment in “Zoolander” is evident by his commentary on the film’s long-awaited sequel during his first presidential campaign in 2016.

“You know what we were talking about during the break?” MSNBC news host Chris Matthews later recalled to “Zoolander” star Ben Stiller about his interview with the future president. “‘Zoolander.’”

Matthews then reportedly added, “He said, ‘Zoolander worked. Zoolander 2 did not work,’ and he explained it to me. It had to do with the timing. You understand? He’s a marketing guy. He said there was a certain moment when people thought that really good looking models were stupid and that would be funny. Then it stopped.”

While Last did not dwell on the comic merits of ridiculing models, he found much farcical in Trump’s library plans.

“You will be shocked to learn that there is a shell game happening with the nonprofit vehicles supposedly behind Trump’s library,” Last wrote. “The library was originally a project of a nonprofit entity called The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, Inc. This entity was created on December 20, 2024 and was to be the the recipient of the legal settlements—ultimately totaling some $63 million from ABC, Meta, Paramount, and X5—resulting from Trump’s legalized bribery schemes from late 2024 to mid-2025.”

He later described the library’s design as “just a tiny, Temu version of New York’s Freedom Tower. I’m not sure where the line between homage and plagiarism is in architecture, but this has to be close. The difference, of course, is scale. Trump’s tower will be barely half the size of One World Trade Center. (I’m dying for someone to create a scaled comparison.)”

Ultimately, Last concluded that the library is an oddly fitting symbol of the circumstances leading to its creation.

“A pathetic, grasping Republican politician hoping to ride Trump’s coattails used the power of the state to steal from the public education system and hand the college’s land to Trump as tribute,” Last wrote. “Trump used the courts to force compliant, mewling media companies to fund his project as bribes to stay in his good graces. The tech oligarchs who for years pretended to be Free Speech Maximalists, eagerly truckled to their strongman. The rules for nonprofit entities were abused to the point of death, allowing a supposed work of charity to become payola for the Trump family.”

He concluded, The tradition of presidential libraries as historical archives and research facilities was perverted to enable a commercial real-estate play. And the entire time the American people sat there, and took it. This is the presidential library we deserve.”

It may not be the library that Miamians deserve. CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes said shortly after the design was unveiled that “I don't know if he's ever been to Miami in the windy season, like, that building is two buildings taller than everything else in Miami, according to the rendering. Like I would be scared just in a normal-sized building in Miami for the windows rattling. I think they need to rethink the size of that just based on where it is."

Meanwhile journalist Michael Wolff reported Trump directly expressing horror to him between his two terms at the idea of building a library, but then conveying “wonder” at the idea of his library instead being more like a “theme park.”

“And then we had certainly a five- or six-minute conversation about what a Trump theme park might be like — restaurants, hotels — it was a vision," Wolff recalled.

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