Pictures of the White House East Wing in rubble could become the enduring image of President Donald Trump’s second stint in office. Wrecking history or the country, Trump has little disregard for what he destroys.
Quickly shifting from a renovation that he said wouldn’t touch existing structures to full demolition of half of the White House, the project is a lesson in Trump’s vanity. He plans to build a massive ballroom that will dwarf the main residence and West Wing.
The classical image of the stately South Portico will no longer be the dominant focal point, but will be eclipsed by a building so large that a football field would fit within it. The grand, gilded design is so extravagant that the best comparison is the Russian Winter Palace ballroom in St. Petersburg.
But that has always been Trump’s way — bigger, better, golder.
It seems downright villainous that he chose to begin such work at a time when the government has been shut down for weeks, tens of millions of Americans will lose their SNAP benefits and food security and health care costs for millions more will spike in the near future. You half expect the want-to-be king to cry out from the edge of the ruin, “Let them eat cake!”
Or maybe “let them breathe asbestos!” In the rush to wreck the East Wing, apparently no one thought to comply with safety concerns that come with renovating older buildings. They almost certainly poisoned the air around the White House over the past week.
Trump apologists have declared the renovation a necessity due to inadequate room for state dinners. The State Dining Room in the White House holds only 140 while the East Room could only accommodate another 60 on top of that. It seems 200 sycophants are not enough to satiate Trump’s need for adoration. He wants something that can host 1,000 or more bootlickers hanging on his every convoluted word.
Trump plans to name the ballroom after himself. Because, of course. You can almost see the chunky, gold lettering that adorn his other buildings spelling out “TRUMP BALLROOM” across the eastern face of the new structure and blaring out to anyone who walks by.
It is not the first time Trump has wrecked elegant features of the White House in favor of his predilection for grotesque opulence. Earlier this year he literally paved over the Rose Garden, a feature originally created by First Lady Edith Roosevelt and later redesigned by JFK. Uprooted and replaced with concrete, the Rose Garden is now only a note for historians.
Maybe Trump decided he just didn’t like the Kennedys. He also plowed under the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden that sat next to the East Wing.
Or maybe he just does not like First Ladies in general. The East Wing housed the offices of the First Lady. From that location women from Kennedy to Nancy Reagan to Michelle Obama had led initiatives that benefited Americans and helped to humanize their husbands.
In contrast, Melania Trump spends as little time as possible in Washington, D.C., much less the East Wing. Her staff is now housed haphazardly in corners of the remaining structure. She likely will use it as an excuse to live in New York or Florida or anywhere but with her husband.
Done without application to any other agency, consultation with conservationists or comment from the public, the entire project has become a metaphor for Trump and how he wields power in his second term in office. He has taken a do-it-now and never-apologize-later approach.
Trump simply did what he wanted.
As a New Yorker and a builder, Trump almost certainly idolized Robert Moses, the famed power broker, who molded New York City to his vision. Starting nearly a century ago, Moses always operated with the belief that once you put a shovel in the ground, no one could stop you. He would have been proud of Trump’s disdain for democratic norms.
Here in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis is likely a little jealous. His proposed pedestrian walkway down from the State Capitol died an ignominious death in July after it had been universally panned. Given that Polis has been a little more receptive to ideas coming out of the Trump Administration, you can imagine he is kicking himself for not just beginning construction without asking. Lawsuits be damned!
What happens next is anyone’s guess. The massive structure will certainly require a huge undertaking to build. It will snarl traffic in the area, fill the White House grounds with construction equipment and fester over Trump’s administration for years as it goes up. Given the need for heightened security, it is likely to add significantly to the timeline. And that assumes that they even know exactly what they are building.
In true Trump wing-it style, the public has not seen anything more than what appear to be AI-renderings of vaulted windows lining a cavernous room filled with tables. No blueprints or detailed sketches have been released. No plans or explanation have been proposed. It could be less developed than Homer Simpson’s car.
All we know now is that there are concepts of a plan for a ballroom. And that there is no more East Wing.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook.