The destruction of the East Wing of the White House to make way for Donald Trump’s gaudy $250 million ballroom is continuing at a furious pace.
New photos published by The Washington Post show a construction team further tearing down parts of the historic building, as outrage grows over the extent of the destruction for a vanity project demanded by the president.
“Donald Trump doesn’t want you to see this picture,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X while sharing an image of the almost entirely flattened wing. “He’s literally destroying the White House.”
Trump’s multimillion-dollar ballroom, which has not received the usual federal commission approvals, is being constructed as waves of federal employees go unpaid during the government shutdown, or have already been laid off by the Trump administration. At the same time, millions of Americans continue to struggle with a cost-of-living crisis.
The White House previously assured the public that the ballroom would be “substantially separated” from the main White House while still being “almost identical” in architectural style. However, the 90,000-square-foot project is now set to dwarf the main building and end up nearly double its size, the Associated Press reported.
Images of the construction team beginning to tear down the East Wing went viral on Monday, even as the Trump administration reportedly attempted to conceal the extent of the damage from public disclosure.
Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist and professor emeritus at Towson University in Maryland, was among those expressing outrage after new photos of the demolition emerged.
“They’re wrecking it,” Kumar told the Post. “And these are changes that can’t be undone. They’re destroying that history forever.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit organization created by Congress to help preserve historic buildings, also wrote a letter to administration officials on Tuesday stating that Trump’s ballroom could “overwhelm” the rest of the White House, which measures 55,000 square feet.
“We respectfully urge the administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” Carol Quillen, the National Trust’s CEO, said in a statement.
Trump’s team has defended the drastic measures being taken to construct the ballroom, noting that past presidents have also overseen renovations and modernizations of the White House.
Officials also stated that taxpayers will not bear the $250 million cost of the project, and instead, it will be funded by private donors.
Democrats have spoken out against how the ballroom is being financed, arguing it could amount to a cash-for-access scheme at the White House.
“The entire purpose of replacing the White House with this gaudy ballroom is to serve as a reward for Trump’s campaign donors and crypto scam bribers,” Jesse Lee, an adviser in both the Obama and Biden administrations, told The Hill.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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