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\n At the ballroom construction site on August 26.
\n Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine\n <\/p>\n
These are Corinthian columns,\u201d President Donald Trump tells me as he sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office in late August, a stack of printed renderings spread before him. The images show aspects of the ballroom he is building on the site of the now-demolished East Wing of the White House. \u201cThat\u2019s your highest level,\u201d he continues. \u201cThere are levels of columns: Corinthian, Doric. And to be honest with you, the White House should have used Corinthian. It\u2019s a luxury house, a house of luxury, and they used Doric, which is not as nice. Maybe I\u2019ll fix that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House exterior actually has Ionic columns, but the extent of the president\u2019s architectural ambitions is clear enough. The ballroom is set to be a gold-adorned Roman temple of a building with 40-foot ceilings and 22,000 square feet of space, big enough to hold around a thousand guests. (The structure overall will occupy some 90,000 square feet, nearly twice the size of the main White House building.) The printouts include close-up shots of the ornate carvings \u2014 dense layers of leaves guarded by two open-mouthed lions \u2014 meant to top the building\u2019s formidable colonnade. Trump says the ballroom shares design aspects with the Palace of Versailles but is in many ways going to be \u201cmore beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
He tells me that advancements have made concrete stronger than ever (\u201cThere\u2019s probably no material where there\u2019s been more progress made than good old concrete\u201d), that he is using the best marble in the world for the ballroom\u2019s floor (\u201cI know more about stone than anybody imaginable\u201d), and that the portico will have columns four rows deep (\u201cThe Supreme Court is three deep. No other building has it, and I did it because it\u2019s incredible\u201d). He smiles, gazing dreamily into the distance as he describes the cocktail parties and conferences that could soon be held in the ballroom, where no one will have to worry about security. \u201cIf you\u2019re making a speech and bullets start getting aimed at the windows, all you\u2019ll hear is \u2018ping ping ping,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI would suggest you probably stop the speech, but you actually wouldn\u2019t have to, if you want to know the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is nothing Trump enjoys more than talking construction \u2014 a topic that has defined his second term in office. In less than two years, Trump has nearly finished a new White House helipad, turned the Rose Garden into a sculpture-laden patio, regilded statues standing sentry on the Arlington Memorial Bridge, added his name to the Kennedy Center, and battled with imagined vandals and actual algae blooms in a disastrous attempt to refurbish the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. He has plans to turn a federally owned public golf course into a championship-caliber destination and to build an arch \u2014 a Trump-size version of the Arc de Triomphe \u2014 near Arlington National Cemetery. Since Trump\u2019s return to the White House, his administration has made changes to more than 100 structures in Washington, D.C. The total price tag: somewhere north of a billion dollars. The biggest project, in terms of both cost (estimated to be $800 million when done) and presidential mindshare, is the ballroom and the military bunker that will be tucked underneath.<\/p>\n
Trump hopes it will one day bear his name. \u201cIt should,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it will, but it should.\u201d In the meantime, the project has become entangled in questions that range far beyond architecture. Construction has been tied up in legal battles that have reached the Supreme Court. Donors are fretting about whether they could be called in front of congressional panels should Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate in the midterms. And Trump\u2019s record may ultimately be judged by what he has demolished and what he leaves standing in its place. A senior White House official tells me Trump views all this building as part of his legacy. \u201cHis rush to get it done in this term is so important because it\u2019s something the Democrats would have a hard time taking away or getting rid of,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen the ballroom is built, everyone will always know in perpetuity that it was built by Donald Trump. Are Democrats going to come in and rip it down? I have a hard time believing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think they could, physically,\u201d Trump says. \u201cIt\u2019s made with the most powerful steel welded together and concrete that is so hard and so strong it\u2019s used in nuclear-power plants. You could take a jackhammer and go to those columns and stand there for two days at full blast and you wouldn\u2019t even see a mark. It\u2019s nuclear concrete. I think it would be very hard. It\u2019s meant for if there\u2019s a nuclear attack. I\u2019m not sure you could take it down.\u201d<\/p>\n
It can feel as if the 80-year-old president has become obsessed with building something that will outlast him \u2014 a literal cementing of his place in history. For opponents, the ballroom threatens to permanently taint the White House with Trump\u2019s petty despotism, spoiling the austere fa\u00e7ade that is meant to be a democratic rebuttal to the gaudy trappings of Versailles and other monarchical displays of power. It is also a test of whether anyone \u2014 Congress, the courts, the opposition party \u2014 can stop a president who has become even more unbound in his second term.<\/p>\n
Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senator from Georgia who is considered a potential presidential candidate, made headlines earlier this year for positing that Trump is building monuments to himself because he knows no one else will do it once he\u2019s gone. When I put that idea to Trump, he does not dispute it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s true,\u201d Trump says. \u201cNobody will do it once I\u2019m gone. When I leave here, nobody will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump peers out the window of the Oval Office overlooking the Rose Garden, behind which two enormous cranes rise high above the ballroom construction site. \u201cIf you want,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019ll take you over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n The helipad had to be redone after the original was deemed too slanty.
\n Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine\n <\/p>\n
In the spring of 2010, David Axelrod, then the senior adviser to President Barack Obama, got a call from Trump. \u201cI build ballrooms,\u201d Axelrod recalls Trump telling him. \u201cI build the greatest ballrooms in the world \u2014 come down to Florida and see for yourself. You have these state dinners, and you have them in these shitty little tents in the back. It\u2019s not befitting. Let me build a modular ballroom for you. You can put it together, take it apart.\u201d The idea struck Axelrod as preposterous. \u201cWe were just coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression, and I\u2019m pretty sure no one in America thinks our priority should be a ballroom for the White House,\u201d he tells me. Still, he passed on the message to the White House social secretary, believing that someone would get in touch with Trump. For whatever reason, no one called Trump back. \u201cHe was owed a call,\u201d Axelrod says. \u201cI have no excuse for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifteen years later, Axelrod has occasionally wondered whether history might have gone differently had they humored him. Would a few shoulder-to-shoulder photographs at a groundbreaking ceremony have been enough to prevent Trump from spearheading the birther movement and descending the golden escalator in 2015? Axelrod thinks not, but there is one counterfactual he entertains: \u201cIf we had let him build his modular ballroom, perhaps we wouldn\u2019t have had to demolish the East Wing. And in that sense, I kind of regret not doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump tells me he holds no grudge about the matter but says he learned something about the Obama administration. \u201cThey\u2019re not good businesspeople,\u201d he says. \u201cIf somebody offers you a free ballroom, take it, right?\u201d If Obama\u2019s aides forgot about Trump\u2019s proposal, he did not. By January 2016, he had incorporated it into his presidential campaign. In Sioux City, during a campaign event before the Iowa caucuses, Trump explained what his administration would bring to Washington. \u201cWe\u2019ll get the top people, top everything \u2014 we\u2019ll have the best ballroom,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause I notice they always put tents up on the lawn. No. 1, it\u2019s not a good security thing. No. 2, the guy that owns the tents is making a fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump says during his first term, he learned just how badly the White House needed a ballroom. It was embarrassing, he says, to bring foreign dignitaries over, but the timing never felt quite right to undertake a construction project. \u201cIn the first term, I was under siege,\u201d he tells me. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel it was the atmosphere.\u201d Now, he says, \u201cis a much more powerful time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first step \u2014 raising money \u2014 proved incredibly easy. Millions poured in from Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Lockheed Martin, Coinbase, Microsoft, and Comcast, to name just a few. The Winklevoss twins donated, as did Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson. \u201cPeople were unbelievably enthusiastic and honored to have a part in an American legacy project,\u201d says Trump\u2019s chief fundraiser, Meredith O\u2019Rourke. \u201cIt took literally a matter of weeks.\u201d One Republican lobbyist who raised money for the ballroom tells me the pitch he gave his clients was simple. \u201cYou\u2019re either on the team or you\u2019re not, and if you\u2019re on the team, there are certain benefits to being on the team,\u201d he says. \u201cIf he has a project he cares about, make a decision to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breaking ground on the project proved easy too. The demolition of the East Wing occurred without forewarning in October. To start building, Trump then needed to submit plans to two relatively unknown commissions: the National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. He appointed three loyal aides to the NCPC: Will Scharf, Stuart Levenbach, and James Blair. The shake-up at the CFA was even more dramatic. In October, the White House fired all six commissioners and replaced them with people more \u201caligned with President Trump\u2019s America First policies.\u201d When plans for the ballroom got to the CFA, it took just 12 minutes to deliberate before unanimously approving them.<\/p>\n
There was supposed to be one more step: approval from Congress, which according to the Constitution has jurisdiction over all federal property, including its buildings. In May, Trump pushed for $1 billion in funding from Congress for \u201csecurity adjustments and upgrades\u201d to the White House, $220 million of which was earmarked for the ballroom. Had that passed, the Trump administration could have argued that Congress had given it permission for the project. But after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the legislation broke budgetary rules, Republicans dropped the bill, thus saving themselves from having to decide between taking an unpopular vote and angering the president. Trump didn\u2019t seem too concerned: Building was well underway.<\/p>\n
When the plans were made public, experts and civilians alike were aghast. \u201cTrump Is the Biggest Threat to D.C.\u2019s Architectural Splendor Since War of 1812,\u201d read a Washington Post headline atop a story by the paper\u2019s architecture critic, Philip Kennicott, referring to the British troops who torched the White House. \u201cThe ballroom seems to violate very basic rules of classical architecture,\u201d says Neil Flanagan, an architect and a scholar in residence at the Heurich House Museum in Washington. Some chief concerns: The ballroom was way too big, overwhelming the scale of the rest of the White House. There were stairs that seemed to go nowhere. And those Corinthian columns? They didn\u2019t fit the restrained style of the complex.<\/p>\n
Barbara Res, a former executive at the Trump Organization in charge of construction, says Trump\u2019s building prowess was only ever as good as the people surrounding him. Left to his own devices, she says, \u201c90 percent of his ideas were terrible. Was he a good builder? Yeah, he was a good builder because he hired good people. Now all he has are ridiculous ideas and people who are afraid of him.\u201d The rushed nature of the project has led to ever-changing designs. The stairs that went nowhere on the building\u2019s south side were removed, then added back. Long after the planning commission had approved one set of designs, the Trump administration provided courts with new ones that included a golden presidential seal above the main entrance.<\/p>\n
All of this has caused consternation among some devotees of classical architecture who have been working with Trump since his first term. Back then, with the help of a nonprofit called the National Civic Art Society, Trump signed an executive order stating a preference for classical architecture for new federal buildings. Trump even brought on a member of the NCAS, James McCrery, to be the ballroom\u2019s original architect. But he butted heads with Trump over its size, and McCrery was replaced by another longtime Washington architect, Shalom Baranes. \u201cIt\u2019s standard, you always fight it out,\u201d Trump tells me, calling McCrery a \u201cgood guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flanagan says this was a wake-up call for anyone who considered working with Trump: \u201cThis classical group made a deal with the Devil, and they all know it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n The ballroom is set to be nearly twice the size of the main White House building.
\n Photo: White House\n <\/p>\n
In November, Trump stood at a lectern in the East Room of the White House in front of an audience of foster parents and children. He was meant to speak about an executive order to address the broken foster-care system. But first he gave a site briefing. \u201cRight behind me, by the way, in about two years from now, we\u2019ll use a much bigger room because we had to turn away a lot of people, and it\u2019ll be right here,\u201d he said, pointing to a wall of the recently demolished East Wing. \u201cThis will be the entrance. That\u2019s a knockout panel \u2014 it\u2019s called a knockout. It looks pretty nice right now, but it\u2019s going to look a lot better in a little while. And we\u2019re going to go from this room into a room that seats a few more people and it\u2019s going to be beautiful. They\u2019ve wanted it for 150 years and they\u2019re getting it and they\u2019re getting the best. It\u2019ll be the best anywhere in the world.\u201d Without so much as a pause, he continued, \u201cEach year, more than 15,000 young people age out of the foster-care system. And unfortunately, too many struggle to become self-sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is one of the stranger features of Trump\u2019s second term: No matter the subject (child-rearing, public policy, baseball, death) or the audience (billionaire businessmen, Cabinet secretaries, children who have faced housing insecurity), he\u2019s probably going to bring up the ballroom. In September 2025, a day after the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Trump was asked outside the White House how he was coping. \u201cI think very good,\u201d he said before pointing to a herd of nearby construction vehicles and saying, \u201cAnd by the way, right there, you see all the trucks? They\u2019ve just started construction of the new ballroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
He talked about the ballroom when announcing the federal takeover of D.C. police (\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a crowd like this,\u201d he said to the press in the White House briefing room. \u201cI think we need a ballroom \u2014 and that\u2019s happening\u201d) and at a meeting with oil-and-gas executives to discuss the situation in Venezuela (\u201cWe\u2019re ahead of schedule on the ballroom and under budget!\u201d). In March, during a Medal of Honor ceremony, he noted that the First Lady didn\u2019t like all the noise from the construction site. \u201cShe says, \u2018Will the pile drivers ever stop?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cYou know they go from six in the morning until 11:30 in the evening. Can you imagine?\u201d Just two hours after a wannabe assassin shut down the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner in April, Trump gave a press conference arguing that the attempt on his life was proof the ballroom needed to be built for his safety.<\/p>\n
In late August, I attended a Rose Garden event about school choice, where he regaled an audience primarily of school-age children with tales of his building expertise. \u201cWe\u2019re building a military complex and ballroom that will be second to none,\u201d he said as kids dangled off their seats, trying to keep cool in the baking sun with paper cups of water. \u201cI was over in China two months ago, and we saw the Great Hall of China; well, now we\u2019re going to have a great hall too.\u201d Trump later led the children like some sort of Pied Piper to get a closer view.<\/p>\n
How much time, exactly, does the president devote to his construction projects? Trump tells me he meets with representatives from the ballroom construction crew once a week to discuss their progress, and his official calendar is peppered with meetings about other projects around Washington that can often last an hour or longer. (White House officials say he used to meet about the ballroom as much as twice a week, but that number has decreased recently.) The day after the State of the Union address earlier this year, before U.S. and Iranian officials convened in Geneva for a third round of diplomatic talks, Trump met with Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and various companies bidding to redevelop Dulles International Airport. \u201cHe cared about the things most people would not even get in the weeds about,\u201d says a former administration official familiar with the meeting. \u201cHe had strong thoughts on the parking garage \u2014 even though he doesn\u2019t drive. He was also really obsessed with taxiing times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joshua Fisher is the director for management and administration in the White House, a role that has essentially made him Trump\u2019s construction czar, despite his having a background in accounting and politics, not building. \u201cWe joke that he is the busiest senior staffer,\u201d another senior staffer tells me. Trump meets with Fisher four or five times a week on all manner of renovation projects, but he is hardly the only administration official who weighs in on the ballroom. \u201cI\u2019ve been in countless meetings on various subjects where he will ask the attendees what they think \u2014 the vice-president, secretary of War, secretary of State, myself,\u201d the senior staffer tells me. \u201cHe\u2019ll ask, \u2018Should we put columns on the ballroom? Which floor do you like?\u2019 Sometimes he has samples of different flooring, different chandeliers.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Fisher, these spontaneous focus groups can be a little discombobulating. A stray suggestion from a Cabinet secretary or a visiting dignitary can mean real work for everyone downstream. \u201cSometimes I smirk in the back of the room because a little bit of design choice or change might cause a ripple effect for the construction team and the design team and the architectural firm,\u201d Fisher says. He claims he can tell when another project is about to be born just by watching the president\u2019s expression. \u201cI watch him when he\u2019s on-camera,\u201d Fisher says. \u201cHe\u2019ll go over to the Indian Treaty Room and I\u2019ll watch his eyes and I\u2019ll see him looking around and I\u2019ll say, Oh my God, I\u2019m about to get a new project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump can see the construction site from the residence at the White House and often starts and ends his day by gazing out the window to check the progress. \u201cHe will call me at 9:30 at night and say, \u2018I\u2019m going to walk over and check the construction of the new ballroom,\u2019\u201d says Eric Trump, who claims his father is having \u201cmore fun building this ballroom than I can possibly tell you.\u201d At the Rose Garden event in August, Trump told the audience, \u201cI love the sound of construction. When I hear all that banging out there, some people say, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s too bad.\u2019 I say, \u2018I love it.\u2019\u201d He brings around unsuspecting guests. In July, Jensen Huang, the billionaire head of Nvidia, came to the Oval Office for a discussion about artificial intelligence but was treated to a tour of the helipad and ballroom construction sites first.<\/p>\n
The obsession with Washington\u2019s appearance is top of mind wherever Trump goes. A senior staffer describes Trump as a \u201chawk in the car\u201d when he travels around town, sending photos to staff when he sees homeless encampments and trash and demanding they fix things up. On a recent helicopter ride to Joint Base Andrews, Trump ordered the pilot to circle around Hains Point so he could review the golf course he\u2019s planning to redevelop from a bird\u2019s-eye view. A recent Associated Press analysis found that Trump has brought up the topic of grass during 45 public events, or about once every 12 days.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s loyal staffers swear the many hours spent thinking about this stuff doesn\u2019t interfere with his actual job. Instead, they claim it\u2019s beneficial. \u201cThe fixation on decorating and the building and all that \u2014 other people knit, and that\u2019s what he does,\u201d a senior White House official tells me. \u201cHe can do anything while he\u2019s doing that: talk to a foreign leader, meet with members of Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it\u2019s like Winston Churchill and his painting,\u201d suggests Will Scharf, the president\u2019s newly minted White House counsel, who recently stepped down from the NCPC.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach president before Trump exercised to take their minds off of things,\u201d offers a former administration official. \u201cHis routine is construction. He doesn\u2019t work out. This is his thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s good,\u201d Trump tells me. \u201cMost of my time is doing other things, like the markets, Iran, Venezuela, the military. A lot of people who don\u2019t do construction, it drives them crazy. For me, it\u2019s actually relaxing because I\u2019m really good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yet even Trump\u2019s most loyal lieutenants will admit it can be something of a time suck. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told me late last year that when a meeting with a foreign leader is scheduled to end at 2 p.m., he assumes the timing is aspirational. \u201cIt\u2019s going to last until four,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cBecause he\u2019s going to want to show them the Walk of Presidential Fame, then he\u2019s going to want to show them the Cabinet, he\u2019s going to want to show them designs for the ballroom, he\u2019s going to take them back to the gift room to have them take whatever they want, he\u2019s going to spray them with the cologne that he has. He\u2019s going to invest four-to-five hours in that.\u201d Put another way, \u201cit doesn\u2019t keep him from doing the things he needs to do,\u201d a former administration official tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s just instead of a 30-minute conversation, it\u2019s an hour-and-a-half conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n The White House says the ballroom is 65 percent complete, though independent estimates suggest it\u2019s closer to 33 percent.
\n Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine\n <\/p>\n
This is where the East Wing is buried.\u201d Norm Eisen, the public-interest lawyer, is gesturing at an enormous pile of dirt rising above recently erected fences adorned with RESTRICTED AREA signs. Just a chip shot away, between the fourth and ninth holes of the East Potomac Golf Links, sits a grove of cherry trees. \u201cIt\u2019s the toxic grave of the East Wing,\u201d Eisen says. \u201cLook at the size of it!\u201d<\/p>\n
In October, the government, in need of a place to dump debris from the demolition, chose the federally owned East Potomac. \u201cThey used bullying to barge in, they did not get the proper approvals, they did not accord with Congress,\u201d Eisen says. For six months, trucks showed up on the course to off-load somewhere between 30,000 and 37,000 cubic yards of excavation soil and demolition rubble onto the course. Rubble that, according to tests, includes lead, chromium, and arsenic and has now been lying off the fairway long enough to have grown a patchy coat of billowing grass. \u201cThe toxic dirt blew everywhere,\u201d Eisen says as we circle the mound, occasionally glancing up for shanked golf balls.<\/p>\n
East Potomac is the inexpensive, beloved, but slightly shabby municipal course Trump wants to turn into a destination for pros. Norm Eisen objects. Eisen, who became a resistance hero for his stint as the special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump\u2019s first impeachment in 2019, now runs an organization called Democracy Defenders Fund that has co-filed a federal lawsuit with the advocacy organization Democracy Forward and Washington superlawyer Abbe Lowell to stop the overhaul of the golf course. He calls its renovation emblematic of Trump\u2019s disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law, arguing that Congress has jurisdiction over the land. The day we meet, Eisen is fresh off a different legal battle, having successfully defended his client David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist, from spurious charges that he vandalized the algae-haunted Reflecting Pool. \u201cDonald Trump accuses people of vandalism,\u201d Eisen says, stopping again to point at the dumping ground. \u201cThis is the vandalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
These battles may seem like small beer compared with Trump\u2019s other undertakings: immigration crackdowns, threats to the electoral system, war. But Eisen sees it differently. He has talked to experts around the world about how to deal with backsliding democracies in places like Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, and Russia. The lesson he learned was that there are a \u201cvery small\u201d number of things you absolutely must do: Protect the rule of law. Protect elections. Expose corruption. \u201cThe illegal construction all over D.C. is the single best vehicle to do that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The fight is coming from many angles. The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit aimed at shutting down construction on the ballroom. At the center of the suit was Alison Hoagland, a retired professor who has written books about rowhouses in Washington, log cabins, and the history of the bathroom in the American household. A volunteer with the National Trust, she used the fact that the construction had disturbed her walks around the White House as legal standing for the suit. The move angered Trump, who posted on Truth Social that the \u201cridiculous Ballroom lawsuit, brought by a woman walking her dog, who has absolutely No Standing to bring such a suit, must be dropped, immediately.\u201d Getting called out didn\u2019t bother Hoagland much. \u201cI\u2019m old and retired, so I can\u2019t be fired, which made the risk less for me than for others,\u201d she says. Also, \u201cI don\u2019t have a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued a preliminary injunction stopping much of the construction, ruling that the president needed congressional approval to build the ballroom. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit intervened before Leon\u2019s ruling could go into effect, agreeing to consider an appeal. In June, administration lawyers made the case that because the East Wing had already been demolished, they had no choice but to continue building. \u201cWhen did it become a fait accompli?\u201d D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett said. And how far could this argument go, hypothetically? If the government decided to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, Millett asked, and if they moved quickly, could nothing be done about that? \u201cI think that\u2019s right, yes,\u201d Yaakov Roth, a Justice Department lawyer, replied. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in late August ruled 5-4 to allow the construction to continue while the litigation plays out, saying the National Trust likely lacks standing. The unsigned opinion held that the administration would suffer \u201cirreparable harm\u201d if building stopped but did not rule on the ballroom\u2019s legality; Chief Justice John Roberts, joining the Court\u2019s liberals in dissent, said the White House\u2019s actions were \u201clikely unlawful.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Democrats take control of the House or Senate, or both, subpoenas are expected to fly. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, wants to investigate Trump\u2019s \u201cvanity projects\u201d for potential pay-to-play and bribery schemes, telling me it would be \u201cvery wise and prudent\u201d for ballroom donors to prepare for hearings. Public Citizen, a watchdog nonprofit, found that 14 of the 27 publicly listed donors to the ballroom received new or increased government contracts totaling more than $50 billion over a six-month period and that many of the corporate donors have issues, like potential mergers, currently in front of the administration. \u201cFirst you demand records and then you dig into what those records reveal,\u201d says Whitehouse, who is the ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which technically has jurisdiction over Trump\u2019s ballroom and other projects. \u201cThere\u2019s always the question in a bribery case whether the culpability lies more in the entity that is pressuring for the bribe or lies more in the entity that is offering the bribe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heading into the midterms, Democrats have intuited that Trump\u2019s renovation projects are good politics for them. When I tell Andrew Bates, a former Biden spokesman now working as a consultant on congressional races, that I have been talking to Trump for a story about the ballroom, he says, \u201cMake sure you thank the president for me.\u201d Ambitious Democratic politicians have crafted their messaging on the ballroom to fit their specific brands. Ro Khanna, the California representative who has been toying with the idea of running for president as an economic and anti-pedophile populist, says the ballroom \u201cshould be turned into an economic war room to lead the renewal and deindustrialization of our nation \u2014 a room to support the working class instead of entertaining the Epstein class.\u201d Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the news site NOTUS the ballroom should be turned into a \u201csoup kitchen,\u201d while Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who is trying to fashion himself as a Democratic pugilist, told them the whole thing should just be torn down and sold \u201cpiece by piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liberal pundits are also clamoring for the ballroom\u2019s destruction. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie suggested it should be leveled by drone attack, arguing that if it\u2019s allowed to stand, then a gaudy symbol of Trump\u2019s authoritarianism will be forever embedded in what is supposed to be the people\u2019s house. But it is also tough to see an incoming president taking the trouble to embark on yet another expensive construction project, presumably at a time when they will be facing any number of urgent matters. Axelrod tells me that the question of what to do with the ballroom, which includes the possibility of a Democratic-controlled Congress suing to halt construction, is a \u201cmetaphor for the dilemma Democrats will face.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike whether impeachment of Trump, the case for which could surely be made, is wise given that you know the outcome,\u201d he says. \u201cOne of the reasons Trump and the Republicans are in such a jam is because voters perceive that he is obsessed with retribution and building monuments to himself rather than addressing the pressing economic concerns he promised to address. Dems shouldn\u2019t fall into the trap of looking like they\u2019re principally focused on retribution against him and tearing down the monuments to the exclusion of focusing on fixing a rigged economy.\u201d (Axelrod\u2019s recommendation: Get rid of all the gold and name the ballroom after John F. Kennedy.)<\/p>\n
Tommy Vietor, a co-host of Pod Save America, says, \u201cMy knee-jerk reaction is that Democrats have bigger fish to fry than the ballroom. But I\u2019m probably 100 percent wrong on the politics and we\u2019ll end up spending half of the 2028 primary debating the best demolition techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the politics of the ballroom are objectively bad for Trump. A poll from the Washington Post in July found that 65 percent of respondents feel \u201cdissatisfied or upset\u201d with Trump\u2019s projects for the ballroom, Reflecting Pool, and arch. With affordability a major buzzword of the midterm elections, being associated with a president building himself a gilded ballroom modeled after Versailles can make life difficult for Republicans. It doesn\u2019t take a history buff to see the Marie Antoinette parallels. Also complicating things, despite Trump\u2019s constant claims that the ballroom is fully funded by private donations, taxpayers are footing a chunk of the bill \u2014 some $300 million for security enhancements and underground infrastructure, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post. It has reported that Trump is set to spend more than $900 million on White House renovations in total and that taxpayers will cover most of the cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is creating political headwinds for members of Congress on a decision that the executive branch has made,\u201d Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina tells me. It\u2019s a message some of Trump\u2019s advisers have tried to relay to the president, knowing full well it can be difficult to keep him on message. \u201cIt gets in the way of the administration\u2019s ability to tell the story of everything they\u2019ve accomplished in the first year,\u201d one Trump adviser tells me. \u201cIf you spend your time talking about the ballroom and not talking about tax cuts \u2026 You\u2019ve accomplished so much, but you\u2019re not talking about what you\u2019ve done for the people. You\u2019re talking about what you\u2019ve done for a building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump is aware of these concerns. He just doesn\u2019t really care. \u201cI think the people should be thankful for it,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of people said, \u2018Don\u2019t do this interview.\u2019 But I\u2019m proud of the work I\u2019m doing.\u201d In early September, the administration announced it would start on the arch in two weeks.<\/p>\n
We had asphalt going into here,\u201d Trump says, standing on the pathway leading to the residence of the White House. \u201cNow you have the best stone.\u201d He points at a pile of square-cut granite \u2014 the type being used to replace the asphalt walkway \u2014 and looks to his communications director, Steven Cheung, who is accompanying us on this impromptu tour of the White House grounds en route to the construction site.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s some stone, huh, Steven?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredible,\u201d Cheung concurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at the thickness of it,\u201d Trump says. \u201cNormally, you use one inch, as thin as you can. It\u2019s the White House \u2014 I said, \u2018Fuck it, what\u2019s the best you have?\u2019 They said, \u2018We have one that\u2019s four inches.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re restoring glory to the White House,\u201d Cheung says, shaking his head in apparent awe.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no such thing as an inconspicuous stroll with Trump. Everywhere we go, he is followed by a gaggle of aides and members of the Secret Service. Everyone he passes stands at attention: Spanish-speaking construction workers, a man with a ZZ Top beard wearing a hard hat, a crew of young men Trump refers to as \u201cgenius military guys,\u201d whom he tasks with adding another drone-landing port on the roof. \u201cWe\u2019ll discuss,\u201d one of them responds.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an extensive tour. Trump shows me the cursive lettering reading OVAL OFFICE that he placed outside the Oval Office along with gold embellishments that wags on social media have compared to the kitschy decorations in Thai restaurants. He also shows me the new stone paving in the Rose Garden (\u201cThis was all grass and was unusable,\u201d he says), the marble floor in the White House\u2019s Palm Room (\u201cYou don\u2019t see a floor like this, do ya, fellas?\u201d he asks Secret Service members standing nearby. \u201cBiden wouldn\u2019t have done it\u201d), and his nearly completed helipad (\u201cYou need a little slope for rain,\u201d he tells me, explaining that he\u2019d had the workers redo some of their initial efforts. \u201cBut they gave me too much slope. They gave me three feet of slope, which is a waterfall\u201d).<\/p>\n
Beside the helipad, on the other side of some fencing, the metal skeleton of the ballroom rises 70 feet in the air. The structure is already enormous, about 65 percent complete, according to the White House, with a footprint larger than a football field. (The Washington Post has reported that, according to confidential documents, far less work has been completed than the White House claims \u2014 more like 33 percent.) The site has been operating at full tilt with the aim of completing the building by the summer of 2028. Every week, some 250 workers, putting in 20-hour days, pour 3,000 cubic yards of concrete and install 1 million pounds of rebar. \u201cThere\u2019s more steel here than in the stadium they are building,\u201d Trump says, referring to the Washington Commanders\u2019 football arena. Already, the crew has built a grand-staircase structure, a movie-theater structure, and a kitchen structure. \u201cI have confidence,\u201d Trump says about the legal challenges. \u201cPeople want it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sparks fly off a welder\u2019s torch while other men lean on steel beams to watch the president inspect their work. When done, the ballroom will be lined with large arched windows with softly draped curtains and fluted columns. The ceilings and walls will be awash with accents of gold, or what Trump refers to as \u201cGod\u2019s favorite metal.\u201d Trump says, standing here, he can picture where the chandeliers will hang and where the guests will enter and leave. \u201cIt\u2019s what I do,\u201d he says. He walks through dirt and rubble to the middle of what will be the ballroom. He kicks a rock with his black dress shoes and looks at the ground. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of stuff down there,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In recent months, in their successful effort to beat back attempts to slow down construction, Trump and his legal team have leaned into another justification for the project. It is, they say, a matter of national security. When the military first heard Trump talk about the ballroom, he says, top generals arranged a meeting. \u201cThey said, \u2018Sir, we\u2019d like to build things, it would be a dream, but there\u2019s never been anything like this proposed,\u2019\u201d Trump says. \u201c\u2018If we could build underground, we could go down five stories.\u2019\u201d Now, whenever Trump talks about the ballroom, he always brings up the drone port that will be housed on the roof, the bulletproof windows and walls, and the underground military wing, which will replace the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the bunker built beneath the East Wing during World War II. The new bunker will keep the president safe from nuclear blasts and contain a fully operational hospital.<\/p>\n
I ask the president if there currently is some sort of bunker at the White House he could go to in an emergency. \u201cNot much of a place,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t do much under a building that\u2019s a little on the fragile side. You can put a little room, but you can\u2019t put much under the White House. Nothing like this.\u201d Trump says he\u2019s not building the ballroom for himself, that he personally will have only six months or so to use it before his term runs out. But what if he just decided not to leave? Could he just hole up in his new bunker after the 2028 election?<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t heard that one,\u201d Trump says with a laugh. \u201cBut I tell you what, it would be awfully tough to get you out. Nobody would be able to get you out.\u201d<\/p>\n
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