Tearing down the People’s House for a pay-to-play palace
This project is more than an architectural change; it is the physical manifestation of this administration’s core tenets.
By Jeff Nesbit
This morning, there is a gaping wound on the People’s House. It is not the act of a foreign foe, but the work of the president himself.
The East Wing of the White House, a graceful structure that has housed the First Lady’s staff and the visitors’ center since 1942, is being demolished. In its place will rise a 90,000-square-foot, $300 million ballroom.
This project is more than an architectural change; it is the physical manifestation of this administration’s core tenets: blatant disregard for process, the transformation of public office into private profit, and the replacement of a national symbol with a tacky, monarchical reflection of one man’s ego.
A president does not simply get to tear down parts of the White House on a whim. Or, at least, he shouldn’t.
The administration moved ahead with demolition despite lacking sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), the executive agency with jurisdiction over such projects (which is not meeting during the government shutdown).
The White House’s cynical maneuver to bypass this oversight is to claim a procedural loophole. The commission’s new chairman, conveniently Trump aide Will Scharf, has made a distinction that the commission is only required to vet the rebuilding, not the demolition work.
This demolition also directly contradicts the administration’s previous, explicit promises. President Donald Trump said over the summer that nothing would be torn down. That, as the excavators prove, was a lie.
The project’s $300 million price tag is where the assault on process becomes what one former White House ethics lawyer called an “ethics nightmare.” The administration claims the project won’t cost taxpayers a dime, with “generous Patriots” and “Great American Companies” footing the bill.
Instead of transparency, the White House held a private dinner this month for potential donors. The guest list included senior executives from corporations with massive interests before the government, including Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
These corporations, as former ethics chief Richard Painter noted, “want something from the government.”
What do they get for their generosity? A pledge form seen by CBS News suggested donors could be eligible for “recognition” for their contributions, which could even take the form of their names etched into the structure.
The administration’s claims about the funding that is public knowledge are just as concerning. Trump said “yours truly” is among the funders, but the White House has not said how much of his own money he is contributing. Who knows if Trump will ever actually contribute anything to it himself.
YouTube, a Google subsidiary, is kicking in $22 million as part of the settlement of a lawsuit Trump brought against the company—hardly a case of simple civic philanthropy.
This is not a historical renovation, like Teddy Roosevelt’s addition of the West Wing or Harry Truman’s vital structural overhaul. Renderings released by the White House confirm the new ballroom will have a “strong resemblance to the gilded ballroom at Mar-a-Lago” and is described by critics as “garish” and a “tacky, bloated eyesore.”
The new, massive 999-person capacity is itself a threat. As Painter argued, the White House’s currently limited space is a good thing because it “limits the ‘pay to play’ game, at least on White House premises.” This new, monarchical event space creates an “enormous temptation” to use the facility for political fundraising on an industrial scale.
This project is a desecration. It began with a lie, is proceeding without proper oversight, and is being funded by money from corporate interests seeking influence.
Trump is literally turning the White House into a reflection of himself: tacky, transactional, and built on a con. The East Wing is just the latest, most visible casualty.
Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.
It is even more than Nesbit describes; disfiguring the White House is psychological warfare against the American people who do not have a financial stake at play in that little project. This is how sociopaths operate--they use pain as a weapon. To many of us who have never been to Washington and to those who have actually seen it with their own eyes, the White House IS America, just as the Statue of Liberty is really more than a symbol to us. It is a manifestation of the idea of democracy, which has no physical shape. We cling to these icons that bring us together as a people.
Every American may not have read the Constitution but does know what the White House looks like. It is the embodiment of our identity as a people. Destroying identity is one tool that sociopaths use to wear down their victims. When will we have the conversation about electing a mentally deficient, malevolent sociopath? When? It just wasn't polite fodder for the 2024 campaign season, was it?
Makes me utterly sick🤮.