President Donald Trump’s project to obliterate the East Wing of the White House and replace it with a gaudy ballroom is polling appallingly with Americans.
Stark images showing heavy machinery chipping away at the extension have reverberated around the globe, causing dismay among many. “He’s destroying it,” Hilary Clinton, who ran against Trump for the presidency in 2016, lamented.
But, Trump says, the changes are long overdue. “We’re building a ballroom. They’ve wanted a ballroom for 150 years, and I’m giving that honor to this wonderful place,” he declared on Monday.
However, everyday Americans don’t agree, according to a damning new poll. A YouGov America survey shows that 50 percent disapprove of the overall White House refurb, as opposed to just 33 percent who declare that they are in favor.
Some 53 percent are against the East Wing being torn down, while just 24 percent of the 2,000 people polled favor Trump’s redesign of the extension, originally constructed in 1902.
GOP voters, perhaps predictably, are hot on Trump’s redesign, which follows his gold-washed makeover of the Oval Office.
Some 63 percent among the party’s voters are keen on a White House makeover, while less than half, 45 percent, like his East Wing redesign. Eighteen percent of Republican voters don’t like his White House makeover and a 28 percent cohort join Democrats in lamenting his activity on the East Wing.
Democrats mostly hate Trump’s cosmetic efforts. A huge 77 percent reject his redesign of the White House generally, with the same amount vexed by his East Wing demolition job. Independents join the Dems in their dismay, 55 and 54 respectively reject Trump’s makeover.
Further polling reveals that most U.S. adults, 35 percent, report that they think the sprawling 90,000-square-foot ballroom will have a negative impact.
The project is also legally contentious. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit created by Congress to help preserve irreplaceable historic buildings and monuments, sent a letter to the three agencies overseeing the project on Tuesday and urged them to pause the demolition until the plans go through “legally required public review processes.”
“Doing so will help ensure that the project both honors the exceptional historic significance of the White House and acknowledges the investment that the American people have in the preservation of this beloved place,” the trust’s CEO Carol Quillen wrote to the National Capital Planning Commission.
The plea is likely to fall on deaf ears, however, as the commission was quietly stacked with Trump loyalists days before the ballroom plans were unveiled in July.
The cost of Trump’s project, meanwhile, has skyrocketed to $300 million, up threefold from projections in February. And despite the tide of criticism barreling Trump’s way, he insists everything is fine and continues showing off his plans for the new entertainment space.
“It’ll be one of the great ballrooms anywhere in the world. It’s about $300 million. It’s set to do many, many things, including meetings of foreign leaders,” the president said, showing reporters images of what the ballroom interior would look like. “I think there’ll be nothing like it,” he added.
The White House has not responded to a request for comment.
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