Donald Trump stinks, so it’s no surprise he relishes the privilege of serf-like labor to build his garish Dubai developments. He was recently confronted about his low-wage UAE workforce by the aptly pseudonymed Vice correspondent Molly Crabapple. An excerpt:

“On stage, Trump praises his Dubai. He is effusive—and sincere. Trump is one sort of Westerner who loves the UAE. They find here a throwback to colonialism’s heyday. No matter how much you’ve shat the bed at home, here your whiteness will get you a job, money, servants from the Global South. Help is so affordable when migrant workers make $200 a month. In police states, there is little crime.

‘The world has so many problems and so many failures, and you come here and it’s so beautiful,’ Trump says. ‘Why can’t we have that in New York?’

Trump does not mention that, like Dubai, New York is morphing into the no-place of multi-national capitalism. He does not mention that this is partially his fault.

The floor opens to questions.

I stand up.

‘Mr. Trump,’ I ask, ‘the workers who build your villas make less than $200 a month. Are you satisfied?’

The room gasps, then goes silent. The security tenses towards me. In two hours I am scheduled to interview Ahmed Mansoor, who spent eight months in jail for signing a pro-democracy petition. I think about Nick McGeehan, a researcher from Human Rights Watch who was deported a few months ago for investigating the same migrant issues I am.

I think about the web of professional coercion that keeps journalists in the US from asking real questions at press conferences. I wonder if the rules in Dubai are the same.

Trump says nothing.

‘That’s not an appropriate question,’ the publicist barks.”