{"id":242560,"date":"2025-10-22T03:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/242560\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T03:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:28:08","slug":"ballroom-blitz-trump-defies-critics-as-he-tears-down-part-of-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/242560\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballroom blitz: Trump defies critics as he tears down part of White House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">US President Donald Trump on Tuesday brushed off criticism over the demolition of part of the White House to build a new ballroom, saying the sound of the construction work was \u201cmusic to my ears\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Democrats including former first lady Hillary Clinton accused the Republican of failing to respect the presidential mansion after excavators tore off the facade of the building\u2019s East Wing, in the first major change to the historic property in decades.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWe\u2019re building a world-class ballroom,\u201d Trump told a lunch for Republican senators at the White House as the grinding and beeping of machinery could be heard in the background.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cYou probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back. You hear that sound? Oh, that\u2019s music to my ears. I love that sound.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The 90,000 sq ft ballroom will be able to accommodate 999 people, Donald Trump has said. Photo: The White House\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/e9f93600-3ccf-4055-a048-82521bd9b9d0_ae74201a.jpg\" title=\"The 90,000 sq ft ballroom will be able to accommodate 999 people, Donald Trump has said. Photo: The White House\"\/>The 90,000 sq ft ballroom will be able to accommodate 999 people, Donald Trump has said. Photo: The White House<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The 79-year-old property mogul also said taxpayers would not pay for any of the US$250 million project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump on Tuesday brushed off criticism over the demolition of part of the White House&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2724,8833,791,4515,12,133249,11733,27423,3319,129724,133248,133250,3,48469,25244,133251,25008,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-242560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-associated-press","tag-barack-obama","tag-bill-clinton","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-east-wing","tag-elizabeth-warren","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-joe-biden","tag-mar-a-lago","tag-mazie-hirono","tag-national-capital-planning-commission","tag-news","tag-oval-office","tag-republican","tag-rose-garden","tag-the-white-house","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}