ArcaMax

Covering the White House, I believe, is the best job in journalism. For nine years – eight under President Obama and one under Trump – I was at the White House every day for the daily briefing.

Even though it was part of my daily routine, I never walked up that West Wing driveway without getting goosebumps. For me, it was like entering the Holy of Holies. Like the feeling a Catholic gets walking into St. Peter’s, or a Muslim entering the Blue Mosque, or a Jew praying at the Wailing Wall.

And not once did I ever say to myself: how much better this place would be if it only had a big ballroom. Not once did I ever think I’d see the day when a president could demolish any part of that sacred building. Nor did I ever imagine that a president could destroy the entire East Wing of the White House – and get away with it!

Yet that’s exactly what’s happening today. By the time you read this, the East Wing, built in 1902 to house the offices of the first lady and serve as a visitors entrance to the Executive Mansion, will no longer exist. It will have been totally destroyed to make room for Trump’s $300 million, 90,000 sq. ft. ballroom – twice the size of the main building – modeled on the ballroom at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland.

Of course, this isn’t Trump’s first attempt to reshape the White House to his own liking. He planted two gigantic flag poles, one on the North Lawn, one on the South, which are totally out of proportion to the White House. He’s decked the walls of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room with bordello-like gold designs. And he destroyed the historic Rose Garden, turning it into an exact replica of Mar-a-Lago’s paved patio, complete with tacky cocktail tables and umbrellas. He even calls it the “Rose Garden Club.”

But this is by far Trump’s biggest and most outrageous move – and the one he’s lied most about. On July 25, Trump first told reporters something he now repeats daily: “They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years.” Which begs the question: Who? Name one president, Republican or Democrat, who said they yearned for a ballroom. Trump can’t. He was lying then, and now.

In that same exchange with reporters, Trump said: “It’ll be built over on the east side, and it will be beautiful. It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it, but not touching it.” Big lie. Cut to video of a giant crane ripping the walls off the East Wing and flattening it.

Hillary Clinton is right: “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.” But apparently there’s no way to stop him. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 doesn’t cover the White House. Technically, changes to the White House must be approved by the National Capitol Planning Committee, but all 12 members of the old committee were fired by Donald Trump, and its new Trump-appointed chairman is in Trump’s pocket.

Not even the White House Historical Association, which you’d expect to stand up and protect the White House, has uttered a peep of protest. Instead, WHHA President Stewart D. McLaurin merely echoed official White House propaganda, insisting that what Trump’s doing is no different from what Harry Truman did. Baloney! In 1949, when building engineers declared the White House unsafe for occupancy, Truman had to move out so the White House could be totally gutted and rebuilt. That’s far different from tearing down an entire wing of the White House to build your own pet project.

For Republicans in Congress, blowing $300 million on a vanity ballroom could not come at a worse time, in the middle of a government shutdown, with tens of thousands of federal employees struggling without a paycheck and health care subsidies about to double or triple for millions of Americans. But cowardly Republican leaders Mike Johnson and John Thune don’t care. They’d support Trump if he painted the White House orange and put a big “T” on top of it.

In a way, Trump’s destruction of the East Wing is the perfect metaphor for his second term. In just 10 months, he has bulldozed everything we once thought untouchable, including: the Constitution, the Justice Department, the FBI, the Defense Department, the National Institute of Health, and the US Agency for International Development. To that list now add: the White House.

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(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)

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