East Wing Demolished to Built Trump Ballroom
It's huuuuge.
AP (“The White House starts demolishing part of the East Wing to build Trump’s ballroom“):
The White House on Monday started tearing down part of the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for the first lady, to build President Donald Trump’s $250 million ballroom despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects.
Dramatic photos of the demolition work showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground. Some reporters watched from a park near the Treasury Department, which is next to the East Wing.
Trump announced the start of construction in a social media post and referenced the work while hosting 2025 college baseball champs Louisiana State University and LSU-Shreveport in the East Room. He noted the work was happening “right behind us.”
“We have a lot of construction going on, which you might hear periodically,” he said, adding, “It just started today.”
The White House has moved ahead with the massive construction project despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area.
Its chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, said at the commission’s September meeting that agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation work for buildings on federal property.
“What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” Scharf said last month.
It was unclear whether the White House had submitted the ballroom plans for the agency’s review and approval. The White House did not respond to a request for comment and the commission’s offices are closed because of the government shutdown.
The Republican president had said in July when the project was announced that the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself.
“It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said of the White House.
The East Wing houses several offices, including those of the first lady. It was built in 1902 and and has been renovated over the years, with a second story added in 1942, according to the White House.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said those East Wing offices will be temporarily relocated during construction and that wing of the building will be modernized and renovated.
“Nothing will be torn down,” Leavitt said when she announced the project in July.
Trump insists that presidents have desired such a ballroom for 150 years and that he’s adding the massive 90,000-square-foot, glass-walled space because the East Room, which is the largest room in the White House with an approximately 200-person capacity, is too small. He also has said he does not like the idea of hosting kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers in pavilions on the South Lawn.
Trump said in the social media announcement that the project would be completed “with zero cost to the American Taxpayer! The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”
I am agnostic as to the need for an expanded ballroom, in that I just don’t pay much attention to state dinners. Offhand, 200 people seems like significant capacity, as that’s already more people than it would seem like a President could host while giving each guest any sense of special attention. But, if there are routinely events of that sort that need to be held outdoors, this may well be a long-overdue upgrade.
I’m more concerned about paving over the Rose Garden and tearing down the walls of the East Wing on the whim of the President. While the White House is his home, it’s not his personal property to do with as he pleases. To be sure, it’s routine for them to redecorate or even do things like add swimming pools or bowling alleys. But this seems well beyond that.
Taking Trump at his word that this is being done without taxpayer money alleviates one issue: that this is happening three weeks into a government shutdown because of lapse in appropriations. But, of course, it raises questions of propriety: who is ponying up $250 million and what are they getting in return?
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I am with you, as a general matter, about a ballroom in the abstract. But I also agree that he is treating the place like a private residence, which I very much object to (the Rose Garden rip-out and pave-over was a travesty, in my opinion). The funding is a concern, as is the lack of approvals. Ditto what the funders are getting in return.
In a symbolic way, at least, not exactly a strong counter-argument to “No Kings.”
No doubt Donald Trump will adorn the floor of the entrance to this abomination with the script of the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution which begins:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States:.. so he and his sycophants can walk all over it!
New low: we had to destroy the White House in order to remodel it.
BTW, honesty in advertising should compel the US to rename it the presidential palace.
It would be hilarious if it burned down because Trump was too cheap and hired a bunch of idiots.
The size of the White House is 55,000 square feet, comprising three floors but not including the wings. This ballroom will be an enormous 90,000 square feet (more than two acres) on one level. This is the size of a supermarket — bigger than a typical Safeway or Pubix, but not quite as big as a typical Kroger or Costco.
The sight of the East Wing demolition has a lot of people taken aback, but it’s just one more straw on what should be a major pile of scandal: out-of-proportion size, monarchy-like gaudy design, lying about portions of the existing building being torn down, lying about disclosing the names of those who are paying for it, starting demolition without construction approval. I will gladly commit to donating to a future administration’s White House restoration project and will not expect anything in return, except perhaps competent governing. The donations from about a million of us should be enough to pay for it.
I don’t mean this to be a rhetorical question but it’s going to sound like one. I thought there was an architect in charge of the white house and capitol who had to go through a process that involved the national capital planning committee and stuff like that. What are those organizations that are involved in that process saying?
@HelloWorld:
That’s a good question and I’d like to hear the answer. But I’m afraid the administration is using the excuse of government employees being on furlough, and treating the government shutdown as a suspension of the rules, like the movies Hall Pass or The Purge, except the shutdown lasts much longer.
Question for our writer friends: is this a metaphor for Trump’s destruction of the American government, or just an example?
The growing measles epidemic is not a metaphor for the spread of anti-science anti-vax propaganda, after all.
@Steven L. Taylor:
It’s a symbolic red flag with flashing lights around it.
From AP:
Donald “small hands” Trump is afraid of feeling small when he has other kings and autocrats over for a party.
Basically, Trump is a dog, he’s determined to mark D.C. and the White House as a Trump property.
In Trump 1. Prequel to The Takeover, he let Melania eliminate the grassy area in the center of Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden and turn it into a Mussolini Plaza.
In Trump 2. Grand Theft Washington The Takeover, he’s already installed rich trash fax gold fixtures and adornments throughout the White House.
That East Room Demolition-New Ballroom Project promises to be a gilded Tony Montana-Scarface monument to rich trash excess.
What brave soul will be the first to report this jobsite to ICE for using illegal immigrants?
I prefer that it be called the Epstein Ballroom for, you know, reasons.