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The White House has started tearing down parts of the East Wing to make way for construction of President Donald Trump’s planned $250m ballroom.
Demolition crews on Monday began work on ripping up the facade of the East Wing facing the Treasury Department, a part of the building that housed the White House’s calligraphy office and the entrance that has long been used by visitors arriving for special events or tours.
Trump confirmed the demolition work during an event with the NCAA and NAIA baseball championship teams from Louisiana State University and its Shreveport, Louisiana satellite campus.
He said the new ballroom would be “a lot of fun” and noted that the construction had “started today.”
“You know, we’re building right behind us. We’re building a ballroom. They’ve wanted a ballroom for 150 years, and I’m giving that honor to this wonderful place,” he said.
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Heavy machinery tears down a section of the East Wing of the White House as construction begins on President Donald Trump’s $250m planned ballroom (AFP via Getty)
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A model of the ballroom is depicted on the left side of this scale model of the White House complex (AP)
The president appeared to suggest that the new ballroom would be connected to the main White House residence through what he described as a “knockout panel” in the East Room.
The East Wing, which was built in 1902 and given a second floor under then-president Franklin Roosevelt in 1942, has traditionally housed the Office of the First Lady and other parts of the White House, including the White House Travel Office and the White House Military Office.
It also sits atop the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the Second World War-era bomb shelter constructed for Roosevelt that was famously used by then-vice president Dick Cheney during the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
The demolition of the decades-old structure, which is the newest building on the 18-acre White House complex, appears to violate President Trump’s pledge that the massive new event space he has commissioned would not “interfere” with the existing buildings.
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The ballroom will hold 650 seated people, a big increase from the current 200-person seated capacity of the East Room (White House)
But White House officials have also suggested separately that the new ballroom would replace the East Wing and have justified the move by noting that it “has been renovated and changed many times,” including the 1942 renovation that added the second floor and the bomb shelter to the building.
Last week, the president told donors at a fundraising dinner for the ballroom that the project had been fully financed, including with donations from a slew of companies including Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Coinbase.
He has said the new ballroom will seat as many as 650 people — more than three times the capacity of the East Room.
News of the demolition work was met with scorn from some liberal commentators.
One such pundit, legal writer Marcy Wheeler, compared the destruction of the East Wing facade to the damage done by British troops under command of Major General Robert Ross, who ordered the burning of both the White House residence and the Capitol during the War of 1812.
“First Trump’s mob attacked the Capitol for the first time since 1812. And now Trump is doing more damage to the White House than the British did in 1814,” she said.
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Workers demolish the facade of the East Wing of the White House (Getty)
Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta also weighed in, writing: “So any president can just start destroying portions of the White House? Is that how this works?”
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Heavy machinery tears down a section of the East Wing of the White House as construction begins on Trump’s ballroom (AFP via Getty)
While new construction of federal buildings must be vetted by the National Capital Planning Commission board, the Trump-appointed head of that panel said in September that the demolition work falls outside the board’s jurisdiction and can proceed without the need for approval.
Will Scharf, who also serves as the White House Staff Secretary, said during a NCPC meeting last month that the board lacks authority over demolition or site preparation efforts.
“What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” he said.
