YOU PEOPLE ARE OBSESSED WITH SMASHING THINGS THAT TOOK OTHERS TIME AND EFFORT TO BUILD

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49375593)

do they have anyone else? i assume not since they're manufacturing outrage about this stupid ballroom, which yeah is ugly but who cares.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49375569)

Many such cases.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49375575)

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https://archive.is/ToWg5

No One Is Tearing Down the Trump Ballroom

By Noah Rothman

October 23, 2025 12:37 PM

What was once a lunatic notion is rapidly congealing into a political litmus test.

Because the next Democratic president must “eliminate the traces of the Trump presidency as much as possible,” the activist set is busy lobbying the Democratic Party to prioritize razing the ballroom that will replace the East Wing of the White House. The next Democratic occupant can and should “demolish the Trump Presidential Palace Ballroom and Casino and restore the East Wing and the rest of the White House grounds to their pre-Trump state.” If a Democratic successor to Trump fails to, if not “vow not to use the new ballroom out of protest,” he or she is “guaranteed” to level the place — and on Inauguration Day, too. After all, “this act of vandalism must not stand.”

Spoiler alert: It will stand. Indeed, the next Democratic president will make extensive use of the ballroom without apology, if only because it is of immense and objective practical utility.

Our editorial identified how such a structure will replace the inordinately expensive and unwieldy tents currently used to host large White House gatherings. But beyond that, even if it had no instrumental value and was purely a vanity project, why on Earth would these Democratic partisans convince themselves that their party’s White House prospects would forgo the trappings of power and prestige? Are they familiar with the Democratic Party?

Is Gavin “French Laundry” Newsom expected to renounce his material wealth and commit to asceticism? Will angry posters compel former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (D., McKinsey) to observe monastic minimalism? Do we believe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would swear off the debutante’s reception she presently receives wherever she goes, but only in her own house?

The very premise is absurd. But the Democratic Party’s aspirants are slaves to fashion. For that reason, it’s sensible to expect that at least some Democrats will bow to the ephemeral pressure their social media feeds are putting on them and pledge to restore the status quo ante — a cramped and underutilized space devoted to welcoming guests and housing the First Lady’s staff. But those who make that promise, if only to outflank their competitors for the nomination, are almost certain to go back on their word the moment they catch the bus after which they’re chasing.

Sure, changes will be made, some of which could be entirely uncontroversial — even welcome. Given the president’s taste, we should assume that the garish, unrepublican gold embellishments will be excessive. Few tears will be shed for their removal. Likewise, the White House’s asymmetry will be an eyesore — one that might be remedied by similarly expanding the West Wing. But if anyone thinks that a future Democrat will eschew the chance to host state dinners, receptions for foreign dignitaries, and other major events on White House grounds without getting their shoes dirty, they’re nuts.

And if that mania derives from the belief that a future president can somehow erase Donald Trump’s decade-long impact on American politics and history, we can see why they’ve subordinated all they know about the Democratic Party to that madness. It is magical thinking fueled by animus. As former presidential staffers have acknowledged, the White House’s constraints “prevented” them from “doing the events that they wanted by the size of the rooms as they currently exist.” The need for such a space preceded Trump because the demand for one preceded Trump, and that demand will persist long after he’s gone.

We should expect that at least a handful of enterprising Democratic presidential hopefuls will pander to the social media hordes working themselves into a lather over the images of construction on the White House grounds. Maybe their outrage will persist long after those images are consigned to memory and the ballroom is in use — even, perhaps, by those very Democratic hopefuls. They can rage at the sight of that ballroom all they like, but tearing it down is not a promise that anyone will keep.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49375630)

detrumpifying the White House and country is a top priority

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49375635)

you're the antifa pumo and you're stupider than wlmas and spaceporn

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49375646)

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https://archive.ph/kNffl

Opinion

Editorial Board

In defense of the White House ballroom

Donald Trump vs. the NIMBYs

October 25, 2025 at 5:42 p.m. EDTYesterday at 5:42 p.m. EDT

4 min

A model of the new White House ballroom in the Oval Office. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

The teardown of the White House’s East Wing this week is a Rorschach test. Many see the rubble as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of law, a reflection of his willingness to bulldoze history and a temple to a second Gilded Age, paid for by corporate donors. Others see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.

In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible. Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and VIPs are forced to use porta-potties.

The State Dining Room seats 140. The East Room seats about 200. Trump says the ballroom at the center of his 90,000-square-foot addition will accommodate 999 guests. The next Democratic president will be happy to have this.

Preservationists express horror that Trump did not submit his plans to their scrutiny, but the truth is that this project would not have gotten done, certainly not during his term, if the president had gone through the traditional review process. The blueprints would have faced death by a thousand papercuts.

Fortunately for Trump, the White House is exempt from some of the required regulations that other federal buildings must comply with. Because it has become far too difficult to build anything in America. Prominent Democrats have become vocal this year in calling out their party’s lawyerly obsession with process, which combined with a not in my backyard (NIMBY) mentality, has prevented a place such as California from building a high-speed rail project that its voters approved by referendum in 2008.

Many homeowners have become red-pilled by their struggles to navigate the slow-as-molasses maze of government bureaucracy when they’re trying to make even modest renovations, such as adding a deck. D.C. alone has 70 historic districts and other random entities that can throw sand in the gears.

Though the fundraising for the ballroom creates problematic conflicts of interest, two examples validate Trump’s aggressive approach. After a fence jumper got inside the White House in 2014, it was obvious that better perimeter fencing needed to be installed. But doing so involved five public meetings of the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) over two years, as members took pains to ensure the fencing complied with environmental rules. Construction didn’t begin until July 2019.

Or consider the modest Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial near the National Air and Space Museum. Congress authorized its creation in 1999. Architect Frank Gehry was selected in 2009. The NCPC rejected Gehry’s initial design proposal in 2014 before approving a revised plan the next year. The Commission of Fine Arts gave its approval in 2017. The memorial wasn’t opened until late 2020. By contrast, Eisenhower planned and executed D-Day in about six months.

The president has said the project will cost $300 million but that he’s raised $350 million from private donors. The White House released a list of 37 donors on Thursday, including Apple, Amazon, Comcast and Lockheed Martin. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)

Trump joins a long list of presidents who have left their imprint on the White House. Theodore Roosevelt replaced greenhouses to construct the West Wing. William Howard Taft constructed the first Oval Office in 1909. Richard M. Nixon converted a swimming pool into the press briefing room in 1970. The modern East Wing wasn’t even built until World War II to cover up an underground bunker. Harry S. Truman gutted the White House interior and added the balcony that bears his name. Purists decried it. Now it’s a hallmark.

The White House cannot simply be a museum to the past. Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness. Strong leaders reject calcification. In that way, Trump’s undertaking is a shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49375896)

If Trump had branded it "A permanent event space to replace the need for tents and port-a-potties", there'd be no room to criticize.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49377450)

How Trump Barreled Through D.C.’s Bureaucracy to Get His White House Ballroom

The president realized his longtime dream by remaking a planning board and taking advantage of permitting oddities; ‘you have zero zoning con

By Annie Linskey

, Josh Dawsey

and Will Parker

Oct. 25, 2025 9:00 pm ET

WASHINGTON—Anybody who has remodeled a home knows that building regulations can slow down even the most minor projects, especially when a property has historic significance.

Yet President Trump managed to tear down the East Wing of the White House with little notice in just a few days to make way for a new ballroom he has long coveted. How did he do it?

The story starts in July with a terse email from the White House to three members of a 12-person planning board who were appointed by former President Joe Biden: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the National Capital Planning Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

In their place, President Trump installed his own panel of loyalists, including senior White House officials, giving Republicans control of a little-known body that has outsize influence over the historic White House complex. The National Capital Planning Commission has raised no public objections to his plans to remodel the most famous residence in the world. Its website now informs visitors that the commission’s work has been halted due to the government shutdown.

It was a classic example of the former real-estate developer in action: bulldozing through norms, exerting control over groups that might stand in his way, taking advantage of oddities in permitting rules and acting so quickly that nobody could stop him.

As it turned out, despite its central role in more than 200 years of American history, the White House is exempt from much of the zoning, permitting and regulatory structure that governs most real-estate projects in the country.

“There is extraordinary flexibility to do whatever the president wants to do,” said Anita McBride, chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush from 2005 to 2009.

Sept. 2025

To his supporters, Trump is showcasing the skills that got him elected: irreverence, expediency and unconventional thinking. To critics, the demolition represents a visual embodiment of how Trump is remaking—or even destroying—the federal government by imposing his will on the country.

Photos of part of an iconic symbol of American power being demolished have gone viral, drawn criticism from preservationists and lawmakers, become the subject of hours of cable television commentary and dwarfed some of the other news Trump has made—including new sanctions on Russian oil. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about the project, even first lady Melania Trump, who privately raised concerns about tearing down the East Wing and told associates it wasn’t her project, according to administration officials.

Trump himself grimaced at the initial photos, as he thought they appeared to show the Executive Mansion being demolished. He quickly issued a statement to clarify only the separate structure of the East Wing was coming down. The Treasury Department instructed employees who overlook the site not to share photos.

The ballroom is set to add at least 90,000 square feet to the White House complex. It will be nearly twice the size of the White House’s main building, which is 55,000 square feet. White House officials say they will also rebuild East Wing offices, which included workspace for the first lady and her staff.

https://i.imgur.com/cuAd6AG.png

Renderings that Trump has held up at public events show a cavernous room with gold trim along window arches, a coffered ceiling with gold trim and chandeliers throughout. The estimated price tag has shifted, starting around $200 million and growing to $300 million. On Thursday, Trump said he has raised $350 million.

“President Trump is a builder at heart. Make no mistake: the newly improved East Wing and brand new ballroom will make the People’s House more useful and beautiful for generations of presidents, and Americans, to come,” said Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman.

The dream

For at least 15 years, Trump had tried and failed to build a grand ballroom at the White House that could host extravagant dinners for world leaders, lawmakers and celebrities. In early 2010, President Barack Obama’s top strategist David Axelrod got a call from Trump, then a real-estate developer and reality television star. They were connected via MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, who had closer ties with Trump at the time.

“He said, ‘You have these state dinners in sh—y little tents,” Axelrod recalled in an interview. “He said, ‘I build ballrooms. I build the most beautiful ballrooms in the world. You can come to Florida and see for yourself.’ ”

Trump offered to build a modular ballroom at the White House that could be deconstructed. “I was thinking, we’re in the middle of a recession, I’m not sure about this,” Axelrod said. Axelrod suggested that Trump get in touch with Obama’s social secretary about the ballroom. They didn’t connect.

In Trump’s first term, he mentioned building a ballroom, former administration officials said, but got waylaid by other priorities. This time, it was one of his first goals. He talked about the need for a ballroom on Jan. 20, his first afternoon in the White House, administration officials said.

Presidents over the years have put their mark on the White House complex. Barack Obama added basketball lines and hoops to the tennis court. And during his first term, Trump refurbished the court and built a tennis pavilion. But his ambitions were far more limited. He consulted various oversight boards for the project and kept the appointees to the National Capital Planning Commission from the previous administration on board.

here are typically three separate review processes for federal historic projects in Washington: a review under the National Historic Preservation Act, submission to the National Capital Planning Commission and an evaluation by the Commission of Fine Arts.

The White House, along with the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court, are exempted from review under the National Historic Preservation Act, even though they are among the most iconic structures in the country.

That means that a less famous building, such as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, would have to deal with more oversight governing changes than the White House. Such a review would assess how a proposed construction project might adversely affect the historic qualities of a property.

The Commission of Fine Arts evaluates design and aesthetic matters for new projects. Plans for any new construction are supposed to be submitted to the commission for its “comment and advice” according to executive orders issued by William Taft in 1910 and Woodrow Wilson in 1913. No such submission has been made.

That leaves the National Capital Planning Commission which, according to law, would weigh in on the construction of the new ballroom. Scale and site selection are among the issues that the NCPC typically considers in its review, alongside historic preservation concerns, according to guidelines on the commission’s website.

With Trump’s July changes, the board now includes six Trump loyalists: his three appointees, and representatives from three of the biggest landowning agencies: the Interior Department, the Defense Department and the General Services Administration.

In addition, chairs of House and Senate panels with oversight responsibilities for D.C. are also on the board—bringing the total GOP representation to eight. They include Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) Both are keeping their views on the project quiet. “I don’t really have anything on the issue right now,” Paul said in a brief interview with the Journal. Comer, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on his views of the White House project.

While the NCPC has authority over new construction, White House officials contend that the commission doesn’t have any say over demolition. The White House plans to submit its construction plans to the panel for review, according to an administration official.

The Trump administration has referenced 2022 and 2023 opinions from the commission’s former general counsel, Anne Schuyler. Schuyler wrote that the demolition of historic structures in Washington, D.C., didn’t fall within the commission’s purview. “If the applicant chooses to treat demolition as a stand-alone project in the District, because the Commission lacks authority over demolition, the applicant is not required to apply to the Commission,” Schuyler wrote.

Bryan Clark Green, an architectural historian and Biden appointee to the NCPC who was fired by Trump in July, said that carrying out major demolition without any form of review or input was nonetheless unheard of. “I can’t think of an example of a federal agency that’s torn down, just straight demolished historic fabric without going through the process in some way,” Green said.

The last major exterior alterations to the White House building were the East Wing expansion in 1942 and the Truman Balcony in 1948. In the last couple of decades, the Capitol complex and the Supreme Court have built additions, but they were underground, raising fewer preservation concerns, said architect Priya Jain, a Texas A&M University professor and chair of the Heritage Conservation Committee at the Society of Architectural Historians.

The White House Historical Association, a charity with a mission to “protect, preserve, and provide public access” to the executive mansion, didn’t respond to a request for comment. A person close to the association said they didn’t want to speak out because they were concerned about criticizing Trump—and had no control over what the president does anyway.

Some wealthy individuals and companies were happy to donate to the ballroom project, according to several lobbyists who facilitated donations to the Trust for the National Mall, a charity that serves as the philanthropic arm of the National Park Service. The group—which had a budget of $9.5 million in 2024, according to its tax forms—has now become the middleman for Trump’s ballroom ambitions, taking in hundreds of millions of dollars in donations that will then be used to fund the project.

Some business lobbyists said that donating to the Trust for the National Mall was a good way to curry favor with the administration without giving to an explicitly political committee. When YouTube recently settled a civil lawsuit that Trump brought against the company in 2021, Trump’s team suggested the charity as the place to send $22 million, the president’s portion of the $24.5 million award.

Trump told business leaders and lobbyists at his golf club in Virginia that the project was important to him personally, and they could write it off on their taxes, people who heard the pitches said. There have been discussions about donors being recognized via a plaque or names carved into a wall in the new building, according to a person familiar with those talks. Companies that have made donations to support the ballroom include Comcast, Lockheed Martin, Micron Technology and T-Mobile, according to the White House.

“In the entire time I have been involved in raising money in the world of politics I have never found donors more excited and proud than they have been to be associated with the DJT ballroom,” said Brian Ballard, a prominent Republican lobbyist who raised money for it. One of his clients, the Dallas-based Aecom, was awarded the main engineering contract for the project.

The fundraising, and events for donors, has triggered ethical concerns. “It looks like pay to play,” said Richard Painter, who was the chief ethics lawyer for George W. Bush’s White House. “This undermines the integrity of our government.”

For now, the president runs a weekly meeting about the ballroom in the Oval Office—which also bears his decorating touches, including gold onlays and gold trim along the fireplace and other surfaces. The sessions feature his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and have included discussions with architects, residence staff, the White House maintenance team, the military office and the White House Historical Association.

He is involved with every aspect of planning, asking granular questions about the floor color, the height and width of the windows and the precise positioning of the building on the White House grounds, according to administration officials. Companies have brought product samples to the Oval Office for Trump to review, and he has kept materials in the dining room off the Oval as he weighs design choices.

The president himself has marveled at his own ability to move forward, telling donors to the ballroom about a conversation he had with officials involved with the project.

“They said, ‘Sir, you can start tonight,’ ” Trump recalled during a recent dinner at the White House. “I said, ‘What are you talking about?’

“ ‘You have zero zoning conditions. You’re the president.’

“I said, ‘You got to be kidding.’ ”

Appeared in the October 27, 2025, print edition as 'How Trump Barreled Through Red Tape to Get His Ballroom'.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49377484)

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WSJ, being perfectly neutral.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789988&forum_id=2)#49377539)