Meanwhile, in North Korea…
Lies about past White House upgrades. It all start with Jesse Waters, but also heads to the op/ed pages of the NYT and WaPo.
This kind of thing, which seems small, is pretty obnoxious because it is a lie and just gives partisans more cover to create their own reality. In the clip below, Jesse Watters claims that Obama spent $400 million on a basketball court and to “rewire a few pipes.”
But here’s the deal. This conflates the basketball court with other major renovations and, more importantly from my perspective, ignores that the renovations were approved and funded by Congress. Moreover, for accuracy’s sake, they were authorized before Obama was elected.
The whole thing is detailed here via Snopes with extensive references: Unraveling claims about $376M White House renovation under Obama.
The money in question went into upgrading heating, cooling, electrical, and fire-alarm systems.
The basketball court addition to the tennis courts was a separate project, and was, as best as I can tell, paid for by the Obamas and involved stripes and baskets being installed–hardly a massive reconfiguration. I have seen a $30K price tag on social media, which strikes me as unlikely, but even so, this is not comparable to what Trump is doing.
For what it is worth, there is a universe in which I am fine with a ballroom being built. There is a universe wherein I am even fine with tearing down the East Wing. But in that universe, neither of these things is done via the sole discretion of the sitting president. In that universe, proper processes and consensus were reached, and the president didn’t treat the White House like his personal property.
In that universe, the president doesn’t say and think things like the following (via Reuters).
When President Donald Trump met with donors for his new ballroom at the White House earlier this month, he relayed a story that thrilled his real estate mogul heart.
“I said, ‘How long will it take me?’ ‘Sir, you can start tonight, you have no approvals,'” Trump said on October 15, describing a conversation he’d had about the project. “I said, ‘You gotta be kidding.’ They said, ‘Sir, this is the White House, you’re the president of the United States, you can do anything you want.‘”
Emphasis mine.
And, BTW, not kinglike at all.
Back to Watters, who, I am sure, considers himself an entertainer and therefore not bound by any semblance of journalistic ethics, the willingness of people like him to sound like North Korean propagandists is just maddening.
Also, the degree to which every comparison seems to need to bring up Obama is telling.
Ross Douthat did something similar in his ridiculous column in the NYT yesterday, Why Trump’s East Wing Demolition Needed to Happen. For reasons that make little sense to me, save because Obama is Obama, Douthat frames his piece by comparison to the Obama presidential center in Chicago.
The controversial public building is ugly and intimidating, architectural vainglory battening on presidential ego, inappropriate to its setting, unmoored from memory and tradition.
I’m talking, naturally, about Barack Obama’s unfinished presidential center, currently looming like a Star Wars barracks over the residents of Chicago’s South Side.
This is, to be kind, silly. Douthat can dislike the design all he likes, but a wholly private activity, whether linked to a former president or not, is rather irrelevant to what the sitting president does to the White House and, more importantly, how he does so.
Trump being Trump, the ballroom project is proceeding without much external consultation and with a whiff of private-donor corruption. But many of the complaints from outraged liberals are more historical and aesthetic, accusing Trump of bulldozing American heritage to build something crass and gaudy in its place.
First, more than a whiff of corruption.
Second, while a lot of people have issued complaints on aesthetic grounds, that’s not the main problem, and Douthat knows it.
Third, I can’t even decide if Douthat is making an argument about development and NIMBYism or just his own, personal architectural preferences. I don’t plan on spending a lot of time untangling those possibilities.
I will, however, say this: opposing the tearing down of the East Wing because Trump wants a ballroom and has proceeded because he can is not about NIMBYism, nor is it some commentary on how hard it is to do development in the US. It is just a president acting however he wants, the rules and laws be damned. Normalizing or accepting that as ok is just another step in the authoritarian direction.
I am looking at you, WaPo editorial board: In defense of the White House ballroom.
It is one thing to argue that it is often too hard to build things. It is yet another to extol a mercurial and dictatorial approach.
It’s no wonder we are where we are.
I realize that “Meanwhile, in North Korea…” is a series, but this strikes me as more of a Russian story – oligarchs and control over the media abound. Bezos’ Post, the Murdochs’ Fox, and Musk’s Xitter are all featured in the ballroom apologia. The resemblance between the renderings of Trump’s vanity project and Russia’s Winter Palace is hard to miss too.
@Scott F.: The original inspiration was the way Fox News acts like state media.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I get that. I just think the oligarchs are a very big part of the story.
In the DPRK, it’s state media. Here, it’s media owned by oligarchs bending the knee to the state. The collaboration between the state and the billionaires is what makes our situation in the US much more pernicious to my mind.
It should also be mentioned that Trump personally promised, less than three months ago, that this monument to himself wouldn’t even touch the East Wing, let alone require it to be completely demolished (along with several historic trees planted by long-dead presidents and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden). Hardly any Republicans seem even to notice his lies anymore, let alone condemn him for them.
The speed with which the estimated cost has escalated from $200 million to $300 million to the most recent $350 million strongly suggests that (a) Trump’s just making it up as he goes (remember the architect for the project wasn’t announced until July 31) and (b) his racket to extort bribes disguised as donations has succeeded beyond his expectations, encouraging him to keep going. I expect that soon he’ll announce that of course the $350 (now 400) million estimate didn’t include fitting the room out, which will cost at least another hundred million or two, for which he’s now soliciting donations.
@Scott F.: I do take the point.
The ballroom building model in the photo is a monstrosity. But I’m getting the feeling that ballroom itself will be a fraction of 90,000 square feet, which would be bigger than a Kroger supermarket (with bakery and pharmacy) in Peoria. I don’t know if his insistence on saying 90,000 square feet is BS that’s supposed to make it sound so grand, or ignorance of a self-proclaimed real estate guy, or some combination.
There was a WaPo article that was not paywalled for me a couple of days ago that tried to reveal the ballroom building details. I can’t see it anymore, but I remember it presented these three things: the administration won’t answer questions on whether the 90,000 square feet is for just the ballroom or the entire new east wing complex, the entire complex will apparently contain first lady’s offices and guest suites, and an arrow pointed to the “90,000 square foot ballroom” on one section of WaPo’s drawing of the proposed east wing complex. So the white house people aren’t giving details, and reporting hasn’t helped clear up the details.
Phase 1 – the East Wing
Phase 2 – the West Wing
Phase 3 – Versailles on the Potomac
TBD (*) – Penn 1600 golf course and club house.
(*) pending annexation of acreage
In no universe should the obscenity of a Trumpian Arc ‘d Triomphe loom over the Lincoln Memorial.
All these antics — the vanity builds, no approval processes, military birthday parades etc. etc. — are expressions of Trump “grabbing American democracy by its _____ .” Because people let you do that when you are famous, rich, and powerful with 6 Supremes in your pocket, allowing your private army to run amok in the cities you see as unimpressed by your chest thumping demands for fealty.
40 some odd percent of our fellow citizens never “bought into” the higher ideals of the liberal democracy they were handed, gratis, by the hard sacrifices of common folk who stepped up to the humanitarian needs of a nation.
I personally have always viewed our White House as kind of “humble” symbol of power relative to some of the lux “presidential digs” around the world. A real “house of the people” regardless of the political party of the occupant. But that will be hard to conjure, once a 90,000 square foot vanity ballroom is affixed to its side festooned with silly gilded adornments. And this while federal workers are concurrently asked to draw on savings or stand in food distribution lines to “get by” in lieu of their paychecks, —- and while everday Americans still struggle with inflated costs for their groceries. A ballroom for the king, bragging rights for the minions. MAGA is mega bullshit.
I call it The Epstein Ballroom.
Because the important thing about it is that El Taco is on the Epstein files.
@Eusebio: Given the architect and contractor were only announced on July 31, it’s quite plausible that no drawings are available because they don’t exist yet. The papers Trump waves around might be nothing more than concept design drawings prepared to give the architect an idea of what the client wants.
However the model which Trump displayed to donors does indeed show a new structure roughly twice the size of the executive residence.
Actually I believe it … An acre is almost 44,000 square feet, which is roughly the size of a football field without the end zones. So, 2 of those plus storage rooms for extra gold accessories and miscellaneous classified documents.