Trump completes demolition of White House East Wing as ballroom budget skyrockets

When the first images emerged last Monday of the work that U.S. President Donald Trump is undertaking at the White House to build a new ballroom, the media headlines, lacking detailed plans, only mentioned the demolition of the façade of the East Wing. But on Thursday, bulldozers razed that entire section of the complex, which has traditionally served as the First Lady’s offices and also housed a movie theater. The move comes amid growing criticism from heritage conservation activists and Democratic politicians, who point to the image’s eloquence as a metaphor for the Trump presidency. Furthermore, the project’s budget has skyrocketed: it started at $200 million; earlier this week it rose to $250 million, and it is now approaching $300 million.

Trump, who promised in July that he wouldn’t touch the original structure, insists that the money will come out of his own pocket and from a list of private donors that was made public Thursday. It contains 37 names of companies and individuals; pending the determination of how the bill will be divided and whether the president will ultimately contribute his share, the total comes to approximately $8.1 million each.

The list includes companies such as Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, and prominent individuals like the influential Republican campaign financier Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. There is also the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the Winkelvoss twins, who helped launch Facebook, and Benjamin Leon Jr., the healthcare entrepreneur appointed by the president as ambassador to Spain and Andorra, and who testified before the Senate this Thursday as part of his confirmation process.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt did not respond to a question early this afternoon about the possibility that the budget might keep growing; she simply confirmed the $300 million figure and said that “it’s not going to cost taxpayers a dime.”

Asked whether Trump plans to continue altering the appearance of the presidential residence after completing the ballroom and setting up a patio with tables, chairs, and sun umbrellas in the Rose Garden, Leavitt responded by alluding to Trump’s past as a real estate developer: “Not to my knowledge, no, but he’s a builder at heart, clearly, and so his heart and his mind is always churning about how to improve things here on the White House grounds. But at this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president’s main priority.”

On Wednesday, at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump echoed Leavitt’s description when he rather voluptuously displayed renderings for the new ballroom, which will be over 90,000-square-foot (8,300 square meters) and, according to his calculations, will seat 999 people for state dinners.

Heritage preservation

The U.S. president, with his past as a real estate developer with little patience for regulations, has rushed to launch his project, which has not gone through a public review process, prompting a complaint from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private organization created by Congress to preserve heritage. “These processes provide a crucial opportunity for transparency and broad engagement—values that have guided preservation of the White House under every administration going back to the public competition in 1792 that produced the building’s original design,” said the letter.

While networks like CNN have installed a live cam to monitor the work from 15th Street, across from the Treasury Department (whose employees have been instructed not to share images or videos of the construction), criticism is also mounting regarding the size of the ballroom. Especially when compared to the rest of the executive mansion, which has a surface area of 55,000 square feet (5,109 square meters).

Meanwhile, the White House has already coined a term, “Ballroom Derangement Syndrome,” and dismissed such concerns as “apoplexy.” Its social media accounts and those of Trump’s allies have recently shared historic photos chronicling the successive renovations to the residence, which was completed in 1800 and had to be rebuilt two decades later after being burned by British troops: from the construction of the West Wing in 1902, during Theodore Roosevelt’s administration, to the decision to use the pool space for the press area (Richard Nixon, 1970), to Barack Obama’s addition of an indoor basketball court in 2009.

The East Wing was built in 1902, and in 1942, Harry Truman added a second floor. As of Thursday, it has become part of Washington’s history.

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