WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump is demolishing the entire East Wing of the White House, a dramatic change from his previous pledge not to touch the historic building as he plows ahead with installing a massive, new ballroom.
The East Wing, which was built in 1902 and expanded in 1942, is expected to be fully torn down by this weekend, per a New York Times report. The Washington Post similarly reported that a White House spokesperson said the “entirety” of the East Wing would be rebuilt.
Politics: Trump Is Tearing Up Part Of The White House To Build A $200 Million Ballroom
Trump confirmed his plans at the White House on Wednesday evening.
“We determined that, after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world, we determined that really knocking it down, trying to use a little section — you know, the East Wing, was not much,” he said in remarks in the Oval Office.
It’s not clear who these alleged architects are or how there could have been a tremendous amount of study on this, given how quickly Trump has been moving forward with his plans. Demolition of the East Wing began on Monday, and the White House still hasn’t submitted any plans to the federal agency that oversees construction of federal buildings.
A request for comment from the White House was not returned.
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Trump originally said he wouldn’t touch the East Wing at all when he announced his renovation plans in July, saying the building was “my favorite.”
“It will be beautiful,” he said then. “It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be ― it will be near it, but not touching it. And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. It’s my favorite.”
The East Wing of the White House being demolished by work crews on Tuesday. The Washington Post via Getty Images
The president has been eager to install his 90,000-square-foot, $250 million event space at the White House. White House officials have been coy all along about how far Trump planned to go with his renovations to make way for it, and apparent Trump supporters on social media have been downplaying his plans.
Trump maintains the project will be paid for with private donations and his own money, and no public dollars. But he hasn’t released a complete list of who is paying for this or how much they’re spending. One of the companies funding it is YouTube, which is giving $22 million for the project. That money is coming from a recent settlement for a 2021 lawsuit Trump brought against YouTube, a subsidiary of Google.
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The president doesn’t appear to be breaking laws by doing this, as outrageous as it is. But he’s certainly rigged the process to work in his favor.
Trump didn’t get sign-off for the demolition from the National Capital Planning Commission, the executive branch agency with jurisdiction over construction and major renovations to government buildings in D.C. But the person who leads that commission has said it’s fine ― and happens to be one of Trump’s top aides and his former personal attorney, Will Scharf.
Scharf, whom Trump tapped for this post in July, right around the time the president announced his plans for renovations, has claimed the commission is only required to vet rebuilding, not demolition work.
Another angle of Trump’s demolition of the East Wing, which Trump said in July he wouldn’t touch as part of his renovations because “I’m the biggest fan” of the East Wing building. via Associated Press
The lack of transparency in this process continues to infuriate historic preservationists and people with eyes, as photos of the destroyed East Wing surface on social media.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a leading preservation organization created by Congress to help preserve historic buildings, warned Tuesday that Trump’s planned ballroom will “overwhelm the White House itself,” which is about 55,000 square feet.
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At least one Republican senator is unhappy that Trump has decided to destroy the White House in the midst of an ongoing government shutdown, during which the president has done nothing to help resolve it.
“The timing is bad,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told HuffPost on Tuesday.
“We’re in the middle of a shutdown,” he said. “Got a couple of other things going on that we should probably focus on ahead of a building project.”
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