US EditionBill Clinton Once Called the White House Movie Theater the ‘Best Perk’ of the Job. It Was Destroyed This Week
President Trump initiated demolition of the White House East Wing to build a $350 million ballroom, funded privately, raising legal and historic preservation concerns.
- This past week, US President Donald Trump began tearing down the East Wing of the White House, Washington, D.C., surprising pedestrians on October 21, 2025.
- Following repeated public assurances that the East Wing would remain intact, Trump said at a donors' dinner last week, `Everything out there is coming down and we’re replacing it with one of the most beautiful ballrooms you’ve ever seen`.
- The planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the main building and is financed by contributions from private companies with business before the Trump administration, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and OpenAI.
- Historians warned the demolition buries nearly a century of first ladies' offices and initiatives, while former East Wing staffers called seeing their old offices torn down `a gut punch`.
- With oversight agencies closed during the government shutdown and the National Capitol Planning Commission chaired by Will Scharf, officials say the commission approves construction but not demolition, raising legal questions.
41 Articles
41 Articles
Omaha World-Herald
EAST WING OF THE WHITE HOUSE DEMOLISHED
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'Destruction is precisely the point': Writer explains Trump's White House demolition
Adam Gopnik tells the New Yorker that Trump destroying the White House is a performance display broadcasting his unbroken power over the presidency.“After months marked by corruption, violence, and the open perversion of law, to gasp in outrage at the loss of a few tons of masonry and mortar might seem oddly misjudged,” said Gopnik. “And yet it isn’t. We are creatures of symbols, and our architecture tells us who we are.”A nation writes its hist…
This is a "let them eat cake" moment. Those don't usually end well. GNR
Nothing says “Let them eat cake” like destroying the East Wing of the White House to build a golden ballroom for fancy parties for billionaires while simultaneously cutting food benefits for millions, destroying the economy with tariffs, and causing...
Trump's Ballroom Controversy: A Symbol of Presidential Overreach
Trump's Ballroom Controversy: A Symbol of Presidential Overreach In a bid to construct a $300 million ballroom, President Donald Trump orchestrated the demolition of the White House's East Wing, sparking widespread outrage. Historians and preservationists decried the move as emblematic of his administration's tendency to bulldoze national norms and historic precedents.At a donor event, Trump, drawing parallels to his real estate experience, expr…
Bill Clinton once called the White House movie theater the ‘best perk’ of the job. It was destroyed this week
The White House Family Theater, the movie theater which first came to be in 1942 when a cloakroom was converted into a screening room, was demolished this week as part of the destruction of the East Wing to make room for President Donald Trump’s planned $300 million ballroom.
Has Trump taken a leaf out of Indian construction manual for White House project?
Donald Trump might have built a real estate empire all through his life, but when it comes to constructing a ballroom at the White House, the US President is following the typical style of Indian projects. From summoning a bevy of bulldozers to starting without approval to cost escalation, it has all the hallmarks of an Indian construction project.
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