“Move fast and break things” quickly became the pleased and unofficial motto of the second Trump administration. On Wednesday, it became clear that the phrase applied to the East Wing of the White House.
The sight of the side edifice of the presidential residence subjected to the mauling of excavators, which quickly demolished much of the exterior wall, generated shock and consternation from preservationists, the general public and Democratic opponents. All of it was countered by a blase promise from president Trump that the outcome – the 90,000 sq ft ballroom with gold chandeliers and a marble floor – will be worth this swift erasure of living history.
As he hosted Nato secretary general Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon, the president was primarily concerned with talking about the imminent US sanctions on Russia and why he believes the time has come for the fighting between Russia and Ukraine to stop. But like any born property developer, he had brought along the plans for his latest baby to the meeting. He also had a model of the new, disco-and-waltzing-friendly White House on a table.
From the outset, Trump has made no secret about the fact that now he is back in the White House, he’s in the mood for dancing. His argument for adding a ballroom had a certain logic. The current East Wing could host just 79 people. Tents or marquees had to be added for state occasions or even presidential parties. It often rained. The ground turned soggy. The marquees dripped. The idea of hosting foreign dignitaries or royals in a glorified campsite did not appeal to Trump’s inherent sense of grandeur.
RM Block
“We are going to build a ballroom that they’ve wanted probably for a hundred years at the White House,” he promised in May. And it will be a “world class, beautiful ballroom”.
By early summer, he declared that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building. It will be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which is my favourite place. I love it”.
But not quite enough to save it. Costs are costs. By Monday, while hosting an event for the collegiate baseball champions from Louisiana, Trump acknowledged the sounds of a building site in the vicinity.
“You can probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back. You hear that sound, awh! That’s music to my ears; I love that sound. Other people don’t like it. I love it. I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.”
It may have sounded like construction but by Wednesday afternoon, it looked to many like destruction, or even desecration, of a venerable – and public – historical building.
Trump has vowed that the taxpayer will not pay for a cent of the estimated $250 million build: it will be a gift from the 47th president himself – and private donors. Questioned about the dust and wrecked wall on Wednesday afternoon while Rutte sat implacably by with weightier issues on his mind, Trump offered the following explanation.
“Certain areas have been left. We determined that after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world, really knocking it down, trying to use a little section – you know the East Wing was not much, there was not much left from the original,” he explained.
“Over the course of a hundred years, it was changed. The columns were removed. It was a much different building – a storey was added on in 1948, 1949, which was not particularly nice. It was never thought of being much, it was a very small building. And rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building that frankly they’ve been after for years – I brought these along so people could see,” he said, producing the sketches.
“Nobody’s actually seen anything quite like it.”
That much everyone could agree upon. Still, the outrage came thick and fast from former occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania. “It’s not his House,” messaged Hillary Clinton. “It’s your House. And he’s destroying it.”
Of course, the knowledge that he is getting under Hillary’s wick is enough to prompt Trump to don the nearest hard hat and go on the job with the sledgehammer himself.
Democratic outrage has become such a daily occurrence that it is just grist to the administration’s mill at this stage. More gravely, the National Historic Preservation Trust penned a letter for the National Capital Planning Commission (in the hope it would reach the Executive Desk) beseeching all concerned to halt work immediately “until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes, including consultation and review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, and to invite comment from the public”.
A noble request ... but fat chance. The latest reports are that the core of the East Wing will be rubble by the weekend. It’s the oldest trick in the developer’s book: rip it down and then ask for permission to do so.
Trump is 79 and fast approaching the one-year anniversary of his election win over Kamala Harris. He doesn’t want to be returning in a decade to dance his first Hucklebuck while some other prez makes the speeches. The ballroom is his vision, and his dough – and his bid for architectural posterity. They got rid of the pool in which Lyndon Johnson and JFK frolicked, they got rid of Obama’s hoops court. They won’t be getting rid of a ballroom made of marble and gold. The problem, as the good people at the trust politely pointed out, is that it’s not actually his house.
“Owned by the American people, the White House was designed by Irish architect James Hoban, whose winning proposal was selected by President George Washington. The building respects Georgian and neoclassical principles. It is a National Historic Landmark, a National Park, and a globally recognised symbol of our nation’s ideals.”
The Republican argument is that scores of former occupants have tinkered and changed the old place since Hoban first put pencil to paper. Speaker Mike Johnson sought to put “this whole dust up about the White House in perspective” by offering a potted architectural history in his becalming Louisianan twang: “Teddy Roosevelt built the whole West Wing. Taft, I think, built the Oval Office. Truman ripped everything up and put a bowling alley in. Johnson added the swimming pool. Barack Obama added a basketball court.”
All true. But the pool was tiny and is now the James Brady press room. And while Obama did adapt existing tennis courts for use as a basketball court, he did not lob the equivalent of Madison Square Garden on to the side of the gaff. The trust’s fear that the size of the new ballroom may architecturally distort or even disfigure the overall aesthetics of the White House is shared by many.
To Republican ears, the complaints are just more grousing from the left who cannot, and will not, give president Trump credit for anything. What other president would have the financial clout to bequeath a $250 million enhancement to the White House? What better way to celebrate 250 years of the Republic?
“You’ll have drinks, cocktails everything on this floor,” president Trump said, slipping into sales man mode and sounding truly enchanted by the prospect. It could well be that history will judge his improvisation kindly but right now, the sad sight of an august building, the traditional living and office quarters for the First Lady for over a century, suddenly reduced to rubble and exposed wiring, has been held up by many as a grim metaphor for Trump’s presidency.
“And then they’ll say: welcome to dinner,” he continued undeterred.
“It’s going to be one of the best anywhere in the world. There won’t be anything like it, actually.”
Build it and they will dance.
