Why is this happening?
Trump wants a ballroom on the White House campus, part of his campaign to gradually Mar-a-Lagoify the People’s House (previous highlights including paving over the historic Rose Garden with a patio that he’s dubbed the Rose Garden Club, gilding the Oval Office from floor to ceiling, and installing a pair of 88-foot flagpoles on either lawn of the White House).
All of those changes bring the White House closer to the aesthetic of Trump’s beachside Florida club. In 2006, for example, he fought the town of Palm Beach over his decision to erect a similarly sized 80-foot flagpole at Mar-a-Lago.
The ballroom in particular is a longtime fixation of Trump’s, one that predates his time in office. In 2010, he reportedly reached out to the Obama White House about building a similar structure, an offer that ultimately went nowhere.
Did we know this was going to happen?
By and large, no. The official White House announcement of the ballroom project, in July, did let on that the East Wing might be in trouble, writing, “The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits.” But Trump himself told the press that the new ballroom “won't interfere with the current building.”
“It'll be near it but not touching it,” he said in July. “And pays total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of.”
Even as late as this week, as work began on the East Wing facade, the full scope of the demolition was unclear; the plan to destroy the entire structure was only confirmed on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before it was completed.
The surprise demolition closely resembles a story from Trump’s early career, when he was building Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. To do so, he demolished the existing Bonwit Teller building, including a pair of beloved Art Deco sculptures high on its exterior face.
Trump had previously said he might give those bas-relief figures to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had hoped to display them. Instead, he took museum officials by surprise by jackhammering them to pieces, falsely claiming under the pseudonym of “John Baron” that the pieces were “without artistic merit.” (Met officials and other experts disagreed.)
Is this legal?
As with so many Trump actions, it’s unclear at best — but it’s equally unclear who could have stopped him. There are at least two commissions, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) and the Commission of Fine Arts, that are usually involved in changes to the White House. At the moment, both are shuttered due to the government shutdown, and neither has had a chance to weigh in.
The White House has also argued that a submission to the NCPC is required “only for vertical construction,” not for demolition, though a former committee chair told the Washington Post on Wednesday that that has not historically been the case. The NCPC says it will review the ballroom plan before it’s built, but it’s already too late to save the East Wing. In any case, the board is now controlled by Trump’s allies — its chair, Will Scharf, is also serving as White House staff secretary — and it’s unlikely to block his plans.
Ultimately, the demolition may prove to be a question of norms more than statute. It’s hard to imagine any other president moving so quickly and so secretly to bulldoze a portion of America’s most famous building, particularly amid a government shutdown when federal employees aren’t getting paid and funding for major food assistance programs is on the verge of running out.
Who’s paying for it?
The Trump administration claims that construction of the new ballroom, including the East Wing’s demolition, will be paid for by private donations, plus a few other sources. Trump himself has said he’ll contribute, though it’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll make good on that.
Trump has touted this model — which he also used to fund the Rose Garden patio and the flagpoles — as a benefit, posting on Truth Social that the ballroom would be built with “zero cost to the American Taxpayer.” While that may prove true, it’s not without its downsides: There are obvious ethical issues attached to private donors paying for a president’s pet project, which become abundantly clear when you glance through the donor list the White House shared on Thursday, which includes major US tech companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google and individuals like crypto megadonors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
Many of those donors have business interests touched by the Trump administration, such as Apple’s concerns over semiconductor tariffs; given Trump’s mercurial tariff policy to date, it’s not hard to see how a donation — or failure to donate — could skew his approach. As one ethics expert, Penn Carey Law professor Claire Finkelstein, told the Wall Street Journal regarding a fundraising dinner for the ballroom: “Every company that is invited to that dinner that either doesn’t show or doesn’t give knows now they will be out of favor with the Trump administration.”
Additionally, private funding makes it easier for shocks like the lightning demolition of the East Wing to take place; under normal circumstances, a presidential administration would need to secure funding from Congress for significant renovations to the White House, a process that would play out in public.
How unusual is it for a president to make this kind of change to the White House?
This is one of the administration’s chief defenses of the East Wing demolition: They’re just doing what any other president might. “There have been many presidents in the past who have made their mark on this beautiful White House complex,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday.
While that’s true, strictly speaking — the White House is a constantly evolving, changing building that has to keep up with the pace of technology and the demands of the presidency — it elides the point critics of the demolition are trying to make. In the modern era, previous modifications to the White House have largely either been strictly necessary or far more modest; the last truly major change was under President Harry Truman, and that was because the first family was literally in danger of falling through the White House floor: One leg of a piano belonging to Truman’s daughter, Margaret, did in fact break through the floor.
The Truman renovation, which required the first family to move to the nearby Blair House for several years, amounted to a complete gutting and reconstruction of the residence. Even then, however, the building’s exterior walls were preserved, outwardly retaining its historic appearance.
Since then, modifications to the White House have been more minor, including the additions of a bowling alley and a swimming pool and multiple updates to the White House Situation Room beneath the complex.
How long will it take before the ballroom is finished?
Trump’s second and final term in office will end on January 20, 2029. As you can imagine, he wants to use it beforehand. The White House announcement in July said that the ballroom would be “completed long before the end of President Trump’s term,” but no specific date has been set.
