White House's East Wing partially demolished as work begins on $250M ballroom (theguardian.com)

Thank god they got rid of fraud, waste and/or abuse.

Glad the average American's tax money is well spent on servicing the public good

they cut down 250 year old trees for this when there exist simple reliable methods to transplant very large old trees

I wonder if now there will be an accident™, and the whole place will burn down and then they have no choice but to build something "better".....

edit:....temporarily in florida

Kind of fitting as the presidency has been radically reshaped in so many other ways.

You're telling me Trump is destroying the foundation of a centuries old institution to satisfy personal ego and fleeting desire? To be fair, that is the platform he ran on.

I am starting to lose trust in the safety of my tap water, but a ballroom would be a fun thing for a few hundred people to enjoy.

Not to be confused with Demolition of Democracy

NPR Morning Edition today reported:

01:45 “The National Capital Planning Commission would typically have a role in approving a project like this. But the newly appointed chair of that commission. A top Trump appointee names Will Scharf (sp?) said in September the commission doesn’t have jurisdiction over demolition. […] And the commission is currently closed because of the government shutdown.”

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/22/nx-s1-5581433/parts-of-the-wh...

The GOP being mum about the razing (with zero outside review) of a building built during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt…to build a ballroom that only one man wishes for…is probably one of the more apropos events regarding our current affairs.

I was upset at the destruction in Gaza and then I realized the pictures were of the East Wing.