{"id":20460,"date":"2025-10-31T04:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T04:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/20460\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T04:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T04:20:15","slug":"democrats-demand-trump-halt-ballroom-inventory-east-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/20460\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Demand Trump Halt Ballroom, Inventory East Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"East<\/p>\n

AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin<\/p>\n

A group of sixty House Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) sent a letter<\/a> to President Donald Trump Thursday \u2014 addressed to \u201cWhat Remains of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave\u201d \u2014 demanding that his \u201creckless vanity project\u201d halt \u201cuntil the president can demonstrate how his demolition of the East Wing complies with federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ballroom has been a pet project for the president, who boasted<\/a> last month that it would be \u201cabsolutely magnificent construction\u201d and \u201cone of the best anywhere in the world,\u201d but it has sparked significant controversy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump has said the ballroom will be funded by private donors<\/a>, but the specifics remain murky and the endeavor has raised ethical questions about conflicts of interest. The skyrocketing cost<\/a> is also raising eyebrows; over the past few months the estimated figure has leapt from $200 million to $300 million.<\/p>\n

Opponents of the project object to the lack of review and question why the plans were not submitted<\/a> before work began.<\/p>\n

What critics find most troubling<\/a>, however, is the expansive<\/a> nature of the plans and Trump\u2019s broken promise<\/a> that the construction \u201cwon\u2019t interfere<\/a> with the current building\u201d and would be \u201cnear [the East Wing] but not touching it.\u201d Photos and video from earlier this month showed construction crews had gone well beyond \u201cinterfering\u201d with the East Wing; the fa\u00e7ade<\/a> was demolished and then an additional major section<\/a>. Eventually, the East Wing was demolished<\/a> in its entirety.<\/p>\n

The letter<\/a> from Raskin and 59 other Democrats was addressed to \u201cPresident Donald J. Trump\u201d at \u201cWhat Remains of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500,\u201d and urged him to \u201cprovide us immediately with additional information\u201d about the demolition of the East Wing and ballroom construction, calling it a \u201creckless vanity project\u201d that they believed violated the White House Preservation Act.<\/p>\n

That 1961 law, the letter continued, \u201cgoverns the care and preservation of the White House and its contents,\u201d \u201crequires the preservation of any \u2018historic\u2019 or \u2018artistic\u2019 property, including furniture, fixtures, and decorative objects, for the American public,\u201d and \u201cclearly directs the current President to transfer any historic and artistic items that are not currently being used to the Smithsonian Institution for its \u2018care, study, and storage or exhibition.”\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just \u201cfurniture\u201d that\u2019s protected under this law, the letter noted, but also \u201cfixtures\u201d and other \u201chistoric elements of the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, neither Congress nor the over 300 million Americans who actually own the White House are aware of what you have done to safeguard the objects in the East Wing that hold cultural and historic significance to the country,\u201d the letter said. \u201cWe are especially troubled because you have a history of demolishing historic property without notice or consent. To clear the site for your Trump Tower in New York, you destroyed two historically significant friezes that you promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.\u201d<\/p>\n

The congressional members urged the president to \u201cimmediately cease your demolition of the White House\u201d and demanded \u201ca detailed explanation of the process you used to conduct your demolition operation to date,\u201d including \u201can inventory of all objects of historic significance in the East Wing prior to August 31, 2025 and the location of all such objects for the duration of this demolition,\u201d \u201cthe actions that your staff has taken to transfer these objects to the custody of the Smithsonian as required by law,\u201d \u201call documents and communications pertaining the decision to cancel all White House tours beginning on September 1, 2025,\u201d and \u201ca timeline of when the White House will resume tours and make itself available to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter concluded:<\/p>\n

The White House belongs to all Americans, not one president or family. We oppose you taking a wrecking ball to your temporary residence without advising its over 300 million owners. You are the temporary occupant and steward of this structure, just like every American President since John Adams has been. You are moving forward to demolish the White House and build an extravagant and wasteful ballroom during a government shutdown while Americans face a serious health care crisis. As costs skyrocket across the country, we urge you to halt this vanity project that is razing a treasured part of our national heritage.<\/p>\n

Read the letter and the full list of signatories here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin A group of sixty House Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) sent a letter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,3857],"class_list":["post-20460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}