President Donald Trump has little to no public support for his ballroom vanity project.
More than 32,000 people submitted digital and handwritten notes to the National Capital Planning Commission, which is overseeing the ballroom’s construction, to express their opinions on 79-year-old Trump tearing down the East Wing to build his 90,000 square foot ballroom.
Around 97 percent of 9,000 comments from the public are against the construction of the ballroom, according to a CNN analysis.
Those who wrote public comments often used words like “gaudy,” “garish,” “ostentatious,” “obscene,” “hideous,” “disgusting,” “vulgar,” “cheap,” “low class,” and “travesty” to describe the ballroom project.
One public comment even called it a “soulless hotel conference space,” and another called it a “fascist take on classism.” One commenter, who said she is a longtime resident of the Washington, D.C. area, said that Trump’s ballroom would be a “replica of his ‘gold plated lifestyle.’”
The ballroom “not only demeans the building’s balance but also creates an imbalance in the presentation of what America is about, undermining principles of equality and humility established by the founding fathers,” another commenter said.
“I am totally disgusted with the administration plan to build a ballroom to replace the Eastwing of the White House. We don’t need another ugly display of tone deaf actions by this president,” one person wrote.
The ballroom has also drawn criticism from members of the public with design expertise.
Kate Schwennsen, former national president of the American Institute of Architects, said, “If any of my previous students had submitted the proposed Ballroom addition to the White House as currently designed, I would have given them a failing grade.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt gave the same statement to the Daily Beast as she did to CNN, claiming that the “nasty comments are clearly stemming from an organized campaign of Trump deranged liberals who clearly have no style or taste.”
“It’s a shame that some people in this country are so debilitated with Trump Derangement Syndrome, they can’t even recognize or respect beauty when they see it,” the statement continued.
The National Capital Planning Commission, which Trump has stacked with loyalists, was expected to take its final vote on the project on Thursday, but the vote has been postponed “given the large amount of public input on the project.”
“We’re going to take the time to deliberate, and we’re going to have a final vote on April 2,” NCPC chairman and Trump aide Will Scharf said.
Despite the overwhelming public disproval of the project, the NCPC executive director published a recommendation to “(approve) the preliminary and final site and building plans for the East Wing Modernization Project located on the grounds of the White House,” which makes it all but certain that the project will move forward.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a new lawsuit against the administration after a judge struck down the argument of their previous suit. The new suit argues that the Trump administration violates the Constitutional separation of powers by demolishing the East Wing and proceeding with the ballroom construction without Congressional authorization.
The president has already entirely demolished the East Wing, once home to the Office of the First Lady and her staff. The White House has maintained that the new ballroom’s $300 million price tag will be “privately funded.”
“The White House is a shared civic symbol of the United States of America. It is not the private property of any one administration and should be, needs to be, treated as such. With oversight and standards expected for any other federally significant project. I was so used to seeing the White House that I did not realize how much it meant to me, until I saw pictures of the East Wing demolished,” one commenter wrote. “It broke my heart.”
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