Trump directs demolition on part of White House for ballroom despite lacking construction approval

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Trump directs demolition on part of White House for ballroom despite lacking construction approval

Follow the latest news on President Donald Trump and his administration | Oct. 20, 2025

The White House has started tearing down part of the East Wing to build the ballroom President Donald Trump wants added to the building. Demolition started Monday.

BY CURTIS YEE, MICHAEL WARREN, LUENA RODRIGUEZ-FEO VILEIRA, KIANA DOYLE, SAM BURDETTE AND NELL CLARK
Updated 9:39 PM EDT, October 20, 2025

At President Donald Trump’s direction, crews on Monday started tearing down part of the White House’s East Wing to build a new ballroom Trump has championed, despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects.

Although Trump said in July the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself, dramatic photos of the demolition work Monday showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground.

The White House has moved ahead despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work to government buildings in the Washington area. Its chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, said that the agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition work for buildings on federal property, only construction.

{snip}

[no_hypocrisy]

1. If there are no zoning inspections and approvals, how can it be assured that

the new construction will be structurally sound? But then again, Trump will have been long gone and not responsible for expected personal injuries due to shoddy work.

[DemMedic]

2. Sadly, this is symbolic...

Of what he is doing to the country.

[Harker]

4. Yes, so much for "the people's house."

[Volaris]

9. He doesnt need permission to rip it down, but the next guy will need approval to FIX IT.

Tell me this isn't a republicans wet dream of how Government is supposed to work.

[Buns_of_Fire]

3. So: No jurisdiction over demolition, only construction (says

one of shithead's "top aides," who also just so happens to be the chairman of the planning commission).

So I guess King Taco can go ahead and tear down as much of the WH as he damned well pleases, without permission. Convenient. Might as well tear down enough to make room for the onsite McDonald's.

[Joinfortmill]

5. Rid us of this pestilence

[HarryM]

6. Watch...

As he stiffs the construction company, as he usually does.

[Katinfl]

7. One day he is crapping on America, the next day he is tearing it down.

What next?

[tanyev]

8. Much like the time Trump destroyed the Art Deco friezes he'd promised to give to the Met.

When journalists inquired of the Trump Organization about the existence of the two limestone Art Deco friezes, a spokesperson going by the name John Barron replied: three independent experts had found that the works had “no artistic value” and were worth at most an estimated $9,000. According to “Barron,” the removal would have cost $32,000 and would have meant a week and a half delay of the demolition work. The alleged costs for the delay were later calculated by Trump’s side to be $500,000. The next day “Barron” was quoted as saying that the bronze latticework that had hung over the entrance to the Bonwit Teller building was also missing: “We don’t know what happened to it.” The artist Otto J. Teegan, who had designed the piece in 1930, responded, “It’s not a thing you could slip in your coat and walk away with.” “It’s odd that a person like Trump, who is spending $80 million or $100 million on this building, should squirm that it might cost as much as $32,000 to take down those panels.”

The journalists didn’t give up searching for these artworks that had been promised to the American public. Three days later, the New York Times wrote, “Repeated efforts over the last three days to reach Mr. Trump have been unavailing.” On the fourth day, the real estate developer contacted the journalists and explained that he had ordered the destruction of the Bonwit Teller reliefs himself: “Because their removal could have cost more than $500,000 in taxes, demolition delays and other expenses, and might have endangered passing pedestrians on Fifth Avenue. ‘My biggest concern was the safety of people on the street below,’ said the 33-year-old developer, who contended that cranes, scaffolding and the most careful handling could not have assured the safe removal of the cracked and weathered two-ton limestone panels from high on the building’s facade. ‘If one of those stones had slipped,’ he said, ‘people could have been killed. To me, it would not have been worth that kind of risk.'” In truth, Trump’s biographer Harry Hurt III confirmed, Trump himself ensured that the workers were told to remove the bronze latticework over the entrance with blowtorches, separate the friezes from the walls with jackhammers and break them off with crowbars, and throw them down into the interior of the building where they shattered into a million pieces. Ashton Hawkins, vice president and secretary of the board of trustees of the Met, was among those outraged and told The New York Times in June 1980: “How extraordinary. I know that there was an offer of a gift in the event that the objects could be saved. I would think that would be sufficient to guide them in their actions. We are certainly very disappointed and quite surprised.” Hawkins dismissed with a single sentence Trump’s argument that the sculptures had no value: “Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?” “The reliefs are as important as the sculptures on the Rockefeller building,” elaborated the gallerist Robert Miller, who had assessed the reliefs earlier. “They’ll never be made again.”

Today as president Trump labels everything that doesn’t conform to his political ideas “fake news,” but he had to admit that he had adopted a false identity to explain his point of view to the public. The alleged press spokesperson John Barron, who sometimes called himself Baron and occasionally identified himself as vice president of the Trump Organization, was none other than Trump himself. In a legal proceeding in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan concerning the illegal employment of Polish workers in the building of Trump Tower for $4 an hour Trump admitted that he and one of his executives have used the name John Barron in some their business dealings. Outside the courthouse, he explained confidently: “Lots of people use pen names. Ernest Hemingway used one.” Sometimes he used the alias “John Miller” for statements such as those about famous women like Madonna or Kim Bassinger who supposedly wanted to meet Trump. In March 2006, Melania and Donald Trump named their son Barron.

Two contemptuous statements Trump made later in 1980 show that the Bonwit Teller affair, which did long-term damage to his reputation in New York’s intellectual circles, continued to trouble Trump. At an event in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, Trump, its owner, expressed his opinion about the table decorations made out of gold mylar and the lion’s head medallions over the entrance to the ballroom: “Real art, not like the junk I destroyed at Bonwit Teller.”

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/donald-trump-bonwit-teller-friezes-met-2132673

[haele]

10. Sounds like him. STOTUS...

Spoiled Toddler of the United States.
He ain't no real Daddy.

[themaguffin]

11. Because of course... POS.