Just ten months in, there are already many disturbing images of President Trump’s second term: masked ICE agents firing pellets into the faces of protesters; federal employees, denied a paycheck because of the shutdown, lining up for unemployment benefits; small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean and their occupants blown to smithereens by U.S. bombs.
But the most disturbing and most damaging is one that rocketed around the globe last week: a pile of debris at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that used to be the East Wing of the White House.
The historic East Wing, built in 1902 to house the offices of the first lady and serve as a visitors’ entrance to the Executive Mansion, is no more. It was totally destroyed by President Trump to make for room his pet project: a $300 million, 90,000 sq. ft. ballroom, twice the size of the main building, modeled on the ballroom at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland.
In many ways, Trump’s destruction of the East Wing is a metaphor for his entire administration: forget applicable law, tradition, precedent, or protocol, act as if you have absolute power, do whatever you want, and crush anything that gets in the way. Among other institutions, Trump has already bulldozed the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Now add the White House to that list.
Like almost everything else Trump has done, demolishing the East Wing comes with its share of lies — or, at best, claims that may faintly resemble the truth but in no way add up to it.
The first lie: how big it is and how much it will cost. On July 25, announcing his ballroom plans, Trump told reporters: “It’ll be built over on the east side, and it will be beautiful. … It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it, but not touching it.” Cut to video of a giant crane ripping the façade off the East Wing and flattening it.
Originally, Trump also said the ballroom would cost $200 million to build (the property, of course, is free). Later, he upped that to $250 million. His latest estimate is $300 million. Like Pinocchio’s nose, expect that number to grow.
First example of the administration’s stretching the truth: In some way, the president and his advisors point out, almost every president has made changes to the White House. Franklin Delano Roosevelt added an indoor swimming pool. Ronald Reagan introduced a new rug designed by his wife to the Oval Office. Barack Obama added an outdoor basketball court. Harry Truman gutted the entire White House and added a balcony. What Trump’s doing, they insist, is no different.
Nonsense. There is a world of difference between them. Neither FDR’s pool, nor Reagan’s rug, nor Obama’s hoops changed the view of the White House that tourists see from Pennsylvania Avenue, nor the overall dimensions of the White House. Trump’s ballroom will overshadow and dominate the existing historical structure. And Truman didn’t choose to gut the White House. In 1949, he was forced to move out when engineers declared the White House unsafe for human occupancy and required its total renovation. That’s far different from tearing down an entire wing of the White House to build your own pet project.
The second less-than-truthful reach: Nobody should be concerned about the new ballroom because it’s all being paid for, not by American taxpayers, but by private donors. The White House even released a list of 37 billionaires and corporations who have agreed to foot the bill, including media giants Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, HP, T-Mobile, and Comcast.
But the fact that Trump’s ballroom is being entirely funded by fat cats and big corporations is troubling, not reassuring. Every one of those media companies has existing contracts with the federal government or potential mergers or acquisitions that need government approval. This is clearly a case of “pay-to-play” which, in any other administration, would be roundly condemned as an example of buying access. Under Trump, it’s just business as usual
One can only imagine the howls of protests from Republican members of Congress if Obama or Joe Biden had on his own — with no permits, no review by historic preservationists, and no congressional approval — torn down a wing of the White House to build a vanity ballroom. But today’s Republicans don’t care. They’d still cheer Trump on if he painted the White House orange and put a big “T” on top of it.
Bill Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”
