President Donald Trump lashed out at a reporter Wednesday when pressed about transparency surrounding his controversial demolition of the White House East Wing and plans to replace it with a 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
“Your response to people who say you haven’t been transparent enough about demolishing the East Wing?” the reporter asked.
“I haven’t been transparent? Really?” Trump shot back, showing off photos of the ornate ballroom design. “I showed this to everybody that would listen. Third-rate reporters didn’t see it because they didn’t look. You’re a third-rate reporter. Always have been.”
The exchange came as demolition crews began tearing down large portions of the East Wing — once home to the first lady’s offices—despite Trump’s earlier assurances that the project would not affect the existing White House structure.
“It won’t interfere with the current building,” Trump said on July 31. “It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
Two Trump administration officials confirmed Wednesday that “the entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished within days.” The New York Times first reported the expanded scope, and a White House official told NBC News that the “entirety” of the East Wing would eventually be “modernized and rebuilt,” adding that “the scope and the size of the ballroom project have always been subject to vary as the process develops.”
The 1942-era East Wing, expanded under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, has long served as a functional counterpart to the West Wing, housing offices for the first lady and social staff. Its removal marks one of the most dramatic structural changes in the White House’s modern history.
Trump has said the ballroom will hold up to 900 guests and cost roughly $300 million — up from the $200 million estimate he gave this summer. He maintains that the project will be “paid for by me and private donors” and “at zero cost to the American taxpayer.”
However, watchdog groups and architectural experts are questioning the project’s legality and transparency, noting that the White House has bypassed the normal review process required for major changes to federally protected properties.
“The whole point of the review process is to improve the design,” said Bryan Clark Green, an architectural historian and former appointee to the National Capital Planning Commission. “From a norms and customs side, administrations have always gone through that process to get buy-in and to make sure the public sees the process and isn’t surprised by the design. The public process would have avoided that kind of shock and surprise.”
Priya Jain of the Society of Architectural Historians echoed those concerns: “It seems like they [the White House] plan to submit their proposal to the National Capital Planning Commission. However, in regular federal projects, deliberation happens before anything is demolished.”
A White House official told NBC News that construction plans will be submitted “soon when it is time,” but insisted that demolition itself does not require prior approval.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation urged the administration to “pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes.” In a statement, CEO Carol Quillen warned that the new ballroom “will overwhelm the White House itself.”
Officials maintain that all historical components of the East Wing, including furnishings from Rosalynn Carter’s original Office of the First Lady, have been preserved under the supervision of the White House Historical Association and the National Park Service.
Still, the White House’s legal exemption from local and federal oversight has done little to quell outrage. The nonprofit Trust for the National Mall, which manages private donations for the project, has confirmed that Trump is personally leading design efforts alongside McCrery Architects.
Trump’s claims that the project is receiving “great reviews” have been contradicted by a wave of online backlash targeting the demolition company hired for the job.
Occupy Democrats reported that Aceco LLC, the firm contracted to tear down the East Wing, “gets FLOODED with brutal one-star reviews as the American people turn against them.”
“This is America’s house! Complete and utter desecration of a national monument. Shame on you!” one Google Maps reviewer wrote. Another added: “Destroying ‘The People’s House’ with no regard for their permission. Deplorable act no matter the reason.”
“The White House is a Historical Landmark. How is this legal?” read another review.
Aceco’s online rating dropped to 1.8 stars before Google revised it to 4.1, according to The Daily Beast.
Images of bulldozers razing portions of the East Wing went viral Tuesday, sparking anger from preservationists and political opponents alike. Many Americans expressed disbelief after Trump’s earlier promise that “it won’t interfere with the current building.”
The new ballroom, expected to double the footprint of the White House’s main structure, will feature a separate entrance for dignitaries and a state-of-the-art events hall. Trump has described it as a “gift to future presidents” and “a space for the people.”
Critics see it differently. “No matter what they do after this point, Aceco will be forever tarred as the company that ravaged a beloved symbol of American history and power,” one commentator wrote online.
The controversy has deepened amid Trump’s claim that major corporations — including Apple, Amazon, and Lockheed Martin — each contributed up to $25 million to the ballroom’s construction. Ethics advocates warn that such donations could function as political favors to gain influence with the administration.
“If true, this amounts to blatant bribery,” one widely shared post read. “These companies are paying for the president’s vanity project to curry favor with him and extract favorable policy changes from his administration. The People’s House has become The Corporations’ House.”
While Trump’s allies have praised the expansion as a modernization effort, public opinion remains sharply divided.
“The optics are terrible,” said one former National Park Service official, noting that the project comes as much of the federal workforce remains furloughed amid a prolonged government shutdown.
Whether the ballroom will ultimately stand as a legacy of grandeur or excess remains to be seen. But for now, as one critic put it on social media, “Stop tearing down America’s house.”
