Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the White House’s East Wing, all so he can make way for his tacky $300 million ball room. It’s distinctly non-renter friendly behavior, nothing like those Homeworthy or Apartment Therapy YouTube videos where the clever New Yorker uses peel-and-stick crown molding on their walls. No, Trump is acting like a guest on Property Brothers Forever Home.
Trump has characteristically lied about every aspect of this historical vandalism. The price tag has already ballooned from a stated $200 million to more than $300 million. It’s like the Money Pit, which is why the contractors are probably saying everything will take another “two weeks” to complete.
The president originally claimed that the unnecessary 90,000-square-foot ballroom addition wouldn’t “interfere with the current building.” Now, the entire wing has been bulldozed.
The East Wing’s history dates back to Thomas Jefferson, who you might recall from Hamilton. Jefferson added the original East and West Terraces during the early 1800s. The East Terrace was demolished in 1866 after the Civil War and rebuilt in 1902 during President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration. The official East Wing was constructed in 1942 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt during a period of wartime expansion and to conceal a new underground emergency bunker, where Trump famously hid like a scared rabbit during 2020 protests. Congressional Republicans still “labeled the expenditure as wasteful, with some accusing Roosevelt of using the project to bolster his presidency’s image”
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt hosted official gatherings in the East Wing and used her office space there as a sort of base of operations for her activism. She is credited with creating what we consider the modern role of the First Lady — well, at least until Melania Trump went MIA.
The East Wing was traditionally the province of the first lady. This officially became during the late 1970s under Rosalyn Carter, who hired a chief of staff and a team of 18 employees. Mental health treatment and care was one of her main causes. She worked to reduce the stigma around mental illness. As First Lady, Carter lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment’s passage and attended Cabinet meetings. As she later explained, “I was there to be informed so that when I traveled across the country, which I did a great deal, and was questioned by the press and other individuals about all areas of government, I’d know what was going on.”
Of course, current first lady Melania Trump has no idea what’s going on nor any real interest. If an East Wing remodel had been necessary under Barack Obama or Joe Biden (and nothing of this absurd scope), we’d see Michelle Obama or Jill Biden giving press updates about it.
The East Wing might’ve been where Laura Bush launched her literacy campaigns, Michelle Obama promoted her “Let’s Move” program, and Jill Biden continued her work in education and with military families, but Melania Trump has remained silent about Donald Trump’s ballroom blitz. (She already maintains a skeleton staff compared to her first term, so she might not even notice the change. This entire second term is like one long senior skip day for her.)
That is one area where Trump doesn’t behave like a mad king. Even Henry VIII would have let one of his wives manage this before he had her killed.
You might recall that the U.S. government is in the middle of an extended shut down — federal workers aren’t getting paid and it remains uncertain if even military personnel will receive their next check. Trump isn’t negotiating with Democrats, but he is personally overseeing the White House’s Extreme Makeover. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters last Thursday, “At this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president’s main priority.”
Reporter Jacob Bogage at the Washington Post swiftly responded to
‘s post above and complained that it was taken “out of context.” He insisted that Leavitt was answering a question about whether Trump “had additional priorities for redoing the White House grounds.” In case the moose out front didn’t tell you already, the government is currently closed, and the economy is in free fall because of Trump’s ego-driven stupidity. He really shouldn’t have any HGTV-related priorities.It’s depressing to see journalists from once reputable publications seemingly audition for positions as Trump’s state media representatives. If Hillary Clinton had received this sort of clean-up effort from the press regarding the full context of her “deplorables” quote, perhaps we could have avoided this entire nightmare.
By the Washington Post’s own established precedent, “Leavitt: Trump’s ballroom is his “main priority” at this moment” would’ve been a perfectly fair headline to run on the front page.
Of course, it goes without saying that Republicans would’ve freaked out if a President Kamala Harris had changed a single thing about the White House. There’d be around-the-clock Fox News rants about how she’s lowering the property values. It would especially be an issue for a President Harris, because the press would probably remember that the East Wing is where the First Lady works, so Harris focusing on it at all beyond a 50,000-feet awareness would be spun as further evidence that we don’t have a real “First Lady” anymore. (And just to clarify, we don’t have one now, not even an unofficial Nepo First Daughter.)
If you think I’m exaggerating, I’ll remind you of the absurd fallout when Harris behaved like a normal American tourist and purchased a souvenir pot during a trip to Paris in 2021. The Washington Free Beacon wrote: “Amid economic turmoil and calls to buy local in the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris dropped nearly $400 for a single pot at a boutique shop in Paris.” And the official GOP Twitter account whined, “While Americans are struggling to pay more than EVER for the holidays, Kamala Harris is out buying a $375 pot.”
In fairness, it’s been four years and I think Harris still uses that pot.
Now, it’s not just that Republicans are corrupt hypocrites who’ll give Trump a pass for behavior they would never countenance from a Democrat. President Kamala Harris would’ve lost half of the Democratic Party if she started a massive White House remodel, razing the East Wing with no regard to history, while the economy was struggling. She’d have lost the other half if she’d done this during a government shutdown, which she had failed to successfully resolve.
A decade ago, the image of Trump razing the East Wing and replacing it with a gaudy, tricked-out tribute to his vanity would seem like something from a parody, Oh, Melania! Now, it’s real life and it’s not funny. It’s tragedy unfolding before our eyes with no promise that the curtain will ever come down.
“At this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president’s main priority.”
This is why I harp on about, not only Murc's Law, but also the worthless access-based glorified gossip columnists that make up the so-called MSM. They are, of course, a vital segment in the rightwing media human centipede. And they are part of the reason we can't have nice things.
Can you imagine what would've happened to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris if—say—Karine Jean-Pierre or Jen Psaki had said something like that? And your reminder of the *scandal* it became with Kamala Harris buying cookware with HER OWN GODDAMN MONEY, makes me stabbity.
trump could never have done this, or even been president, if it hadn't been for his enablers - the Republican Party, most of the MSM, and voters too lazy and/or stupid to pay attention to the candidates (not just what they say, but what they have done with their lives up to running for office). Sometimes I hate them more than I hate trump.