President Donald Trump keeps snubbing Charlie Kirk to talk about construction of a new ballroom at the White House.
Speaking on Fox & Friends Friday morning, Trump took the opportunity to plug preparations for the $200 million ballroom, while describing his despair at learning that his right-wing ally had been fatally shot in Utah.
“I was in the midst of, you know, building a great—for 150 years they’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House, right? They don’t have a ballroom, they have to use tents on the lawn for President Xi when he comes over; if it rains it’s a wipeout, and so I was with architects that were design[ing]—it’s gonna be incredible,” Trump rambled.
Trump on Charlie Kirk: “Oh, when I heard it? I was in the midst of building a great — for 150 years they’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House, right? They have to use tents for President Xi when he comes over. If it rains, it’s a wipeout. And so I was with the architects …… pic.twitter.com/wBV5yz2nUC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2025
This may seem par for the course for Trump’s roundabout speech pattern, but later Friday, the president changed the subject from Kirk to construction yet again while taking questions from reporters outside of the White House.
“How are you holding up over the last three and a half days?” asked one reporter, who’d also wished him condolences for Kirk.
“I think very good,” Trump replied. “And by the way, right there you see all the trucks; they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House. Which is something they’ve been trying to get as you know for about 150 years, and it’s gonna be a beauty, it’ll be an absolutely magnificent structure.
“And I just see all the trucks, they just started, so it’ll get done uh very nicely and it’ll be one of the best anywhere in the world, actually,” the president went on.
Q: My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk. How are you holding up?TRUMP: I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get… pic.twitter.com/Jrw4j2fnVZ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2025
Online, some people accused Trump of not even pretending to care about Kirk’s death.
“Now this is how you respect a man’s memory,” politics podcaster Briahna Joy Gray wrote on X.
Joanne Carducci, a Democratic influencer, wrote, “I vehemently disagreed with every single thing Charlie Kirk ever said, and I was able to express more empathy than this.”
Trump announced the construction of a new 90,000 square foot ballroom that could seat 650 people in July, as the latest project in his sweeping aesthetic overhaul to transform the White House into his beloved Mar-a-Lago resort.
The post You Won’t Believe How Trump Just Spun Charlie Kirk’s Death … Twice appeared first on New Republic.
