48
votes
US President Donald Trump has begun demolishing the east wing of the White House, without approval
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump's ballroom
- Published
- Oct 20 2025
An apt metaphor for what he's doing to the rest of the federal government, I suppose.
We somehow found a more poignant metaphor than the clown's own mugshot.
Imagine if Obama had done this. Millions would call for his lynching and a civil war.
Better, in their opinion, that a tacky ballroom is being installed to stroke the ego of a child rapist and traitor to the nation.
If Conservatives didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.
Ok, this sent me down a rabbit hole. The east wing is in fact where I thought it was. That led me to it housing the visitor entrance, the First Lady’s and her staff’s office, including the White House Graphics and Calligraphy Office.
That wiki page included this invitation from 1801. At first I thought it was funny that was full justified, then I looked closer and realized it’s a form letter!
CNN: White House releases list of donors for Trump’s multi-million-dollar ballroom
Ars Technica has satellite photos. The whole thing's been leveled.
Nobody noticed trucks removing furniture. Was it all just destroyed? That's a lot of historical artifacts in the dumpster
Who's approval does he need exactly? The title here does not match the article title (currently, I know this often changes after initial posting) and the article does not mention needing approval, or who would need to give it.
Officially it must be approved by the
White House Historical CommitteeCommittee for the Preservation of the White House, which are appointed by the president, and the official approval process or votes have been invoked.They could argue that the East Wing is not the White House exactly, but all recent administrations have had any changes to the WH and its extensions approved by the Committee. Additionally, the funding hasn't been approved for budgetary means for the WH.
If this is something that isn't law but just common decency, then that explains why it's being ignored. That's something we've discovered more and more of throughout both Trump administrations.
Not that the law has been a barrier either.
I don't really understand what a law even is anymore with regards to the presidency. The supreme court has already ruled that the president can't be prosecuted for any official act he takes. The president is also directly in control of the executive branch, who is the enforcement arm of the government.
So laws don't seem to apply to anything he does. They're more like vague suggestions. Who could stop him from doing anything he wanted? Like, if he wanted to just nuke New York City. That would almost definitely be illegal, but there's no group of people that can either legally or practically stop him from doing that, and he can't be held accountable for it even after he leaves office.
Like in theory Congress could impeach him, but even if that's successful and he actually leaves office, there's no legal mechanism to actually dissuade or punish him.
So what even are laws, and why do we spend so much time talking about whether something he's done is legal or not? Ultimately it doesn't really matter either way.
It really all boils down to this. That is the most outrageous ruling I’ve ever heard of, and the implications of it are terrible. I don’t believe there is any way for it to be overturned, because SCOTUS is unaccountable. It feels like that was a blind spot in the founders’ system of checks and balances. I wonder if a constitutional amendment could be proposed to allow voters to reverse bad precedent or something.
Amendment won’t happen any time soon. But get a Democrat in office and have them offend conservatives by breaking the law on their way out the door and they’ll line up real quick to patch the hole in our checks and balances.
There has to be some line where the people who enforce his orders decide that it's a better idea to not do that.
You'd hope. I would have expected that line to have been crossed a long time ago though.
archive.is
Gonna be honest, this seems like one of the most non-issue things Trump has done. I don't give a shit about this when he's done things like:
But the news cycle needs something to wail over this week.
People have emotional attachments to symbols and history, and I'm grateful if publicity around this act causes some people on the right to question Trump and his methods.
Regardless, Trump's lying fraudulent tactics are on full public display in this example. It's very similar to how a rapist would entice their victim to a private place where they were vulnerable to attack. Trump said that the ballroom would be adjacent to the East wing, not touching it, until literally the moment when the machinery started destroying the facade.
While, yes, I agree with you on the heinous things he is and has done, I will say that I do care about this for the following reason: He is trying to destroy anything that has any historical backing that isn't tied to him, he is trying to create a physical legacy, and he is using public corporate bribes to get it done.
All these companies that are "paying" for it, are using this as a means to funnel hundreds of millions through the government as 'public donations', allowing them to take off billions from their ever decreasing tax requirements, they donate XX million, which means they can reduce their public tax payments by ten times. It's a lose-lose situation for the public. If this is allowed, they will not stop.
I have no personal knowledge but someone online said that the white house east wing contained rare hardwoods that are now priceless and unavailable. Of course Trump didn't care to salvage them.
Christ, what an asshole.
You've posted this same thing as a top level response to a lot of Trump related stuff recently. I agree with the sentiment, but I'm curious if there's another context I'm missing? FOMO and all that.. :D
I got you. Essentially, there are some contexts where "Christ, what an asshole." can be used for everything within a certain context. Trump is at that point.
Ah, you beat me to the KYM link. Well played.
Awesome, thank you both for the context. FOMO abated!
I'm pretty sure they use this line in the TV show The Wire, I think in the season finale so it would have come after the New Yorker. Never knew it possibly even came from that. Could also just have been a coincidence but still interesting to know.
The phrase is an ancient meme. I've come to realize it's the perfect response to nearly every headline about Trump's bullshit. The firehose of nonsense that it is (especially as he continues to try to distract us from the Epstein files), I can no longer justify the time and energy needed to articulate a response to any of it. Everyone will have moved on in a month anyway... the zone is flooded.
But I'm going to continue to note his assholery at every opportunity, because that's the one thing that remains constant.