The White House’s East Wing was demolished this week in a surprise round of preparations to make room for President Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom.
Trump insisted in July that his planned 90,000 square-foot ballroom would be “near” the East Wing, but “not touching it,” and that construction would not “interfere with the current building.”
He later changed his mind, telling guests at a dinner for ballroom donors on Oct. 15, “Everything out there is coming down, and we’re replacing it with one of the most beautiful ballrooms that you’ve ever seen.”
That has already come to pass.
Demolition crews have already destroyed the entire East Wing of the White House, including the Office of the First Lady, the historic East Colonnade, and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. The destruction is even visible from space.
Also lost in the demolition were several historic trees, including two southern magnolias commemorating Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Warren G. Harding, as well as a Yoshino cherry tree that Jill Biden planted in 2023 with former first lady of Japan, Kishida Yuko.
Despite the ongoing demolition, the White House has made an effort to conceal the extent of the destruction. The Treasury Department, which has offices that directly face the East Wing, has already instructed employees not to share photos of the demolition.
A Treasury Department spokesman later told The Wall Street Journal that photos of the demolition could “potentially reveal sensitive items, including security features or confidential structural details.”
The Treasury Department did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
The president didn’t address the demolition of the East Wing until Wednesday, when it was already well underway. Some workers have even signed NDAs about the ongoing construction, according to CNN.
Trump’s speedy project bypassed the standard approval process for White House renovations.
Instead of sending construction plans for approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, which usually oversees the renovations of major federal buildings, Trump moved full steam ahead with demolition before plans were even finalized.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later told reporters that the president hadn’t shared his plans with the NCPC because they oversee construction, not demolition.
This rapid timeline could mean that the site of the former East Wing remains empty for several months before construction on the new ballroom begins.
The sped-up demolition timeline also means some elements of Trump’s construction plans remain unclear. For example, it’s not yet known what will become of the underground bunker beneath the original East Wing, known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.
The White House also has yet to announce what will become of the staffers whose offices were previously in the now-demolished area, most of whom work under First Lady Melania Trump.
During the construction period, their offices have been temporarily relocated to other parts of the White House.
When asked about these plans, the White House did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Trump, meanwhile, has gone on the defensive, telling reporters that the East Wing “Was never thought of as being much.”
“It was a very small building,” he said on Wednesday.
The White House has also pointed to past renovations, arguing the demolition of the East Wing is part of a long tradition of presidents making the house their own.
Leavitt even presented a series of photos during her Thursday press conference, detailing the 1902 renovation in which the East Wing was constructed under President Theodore Roosevelt.
“There have been many presidents in the past who have made their mark on this beautiful White House complex,” she said.
Leavitt has also implied that Trump has full power to demolish other national monuments, like the Jefferson Memorial, because the NCPC doesn’t oversee demolition.
William Scharf, a former personal lawyer to Trump who now serves as the White House staff secretary and was quietly appointed as chair of the National Capital Planning Commission in July, has echoed Trump’s claims.
When asked about the teardown this week, Scharf claimed the commission doesn’t need to approve “demolition and site preparation work,” only vertical construction.
The federal law that governs the NCPC, however, says that the commission’s purpose is to “preserve the important historical and natural features of the National Capital” and defines it as the government’s “central planning agency.”
Meanwhile, staffers from previous administrations have gone public with their grief.
Penny Adams, a former staffer for First Lady Pat Nixon, told the Daily Beast that she and another former staffer had repeatedly tried to contact the NCPC to see what could be done to prevent the East Wing from being razed. The NCPC is currently closed due to the government shutdown.
By Friday, the East Wing had been reduced to rubble. The substantial debris from the demolition is reportedly being sent to the East Potomac Golf Links, a nearby public golf course.
The demolition has effectively closed the White House to visitors. The D.C. landmark has stopped giving tours indefinitely.
A senior administration official told The New York Times on Wednesday that the White House moved ahead with the demolition because it had determined it was “cheaper and more structurally sound” than building a ballroom next to the existing structure.
However, the new ballroom is now estimated to cost $300 million—a far cry from the president’s original $100 million prediction.
Trump has maintained that he and several private donors are funding the construction, not taxpayers. He has also suggested that he might get his own Department of Justice to pay him $230 million to compensate him for the legal battles he fought during Joe Biden’s presidency—and that some of that money could be used to fund the vanity project.
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