As is the case with anything related to Donald Trump, leftists lose their minds. Whether he’s building a big, beautiful ballroom or seeking damages from the Justice Department for its campaign of unjust lawfare against him, in the Left’s irrational minds, it’s all bad because Orange Man equals evil.
Everyone knows that if a Democrat president were making renovations to the East Wing, they would be praising it, or if a Democrat president had filed claims against the government, the Left would be justifying it. Probably the thing that makes them the most mad is that they can’t claim corruption in either case.
On Tuesday, Trump confirmed that his legal team is pursuing a $230 million settlement from the DOJ. The president acknowledged the conflict of interest in the situation, stating yesterday, “That decision would have to go across my desk, and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself. In other words, did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you’re paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged very greatly, and any money that I would get, I would give to charity.” Trump added that he wasn’t looking for money, and we certainly know he doesn’t need it.
Both cases at issue were filed in 2023 and 2024, while he was a private citizen, setting in motion the process that would eventually lead to a lawsuit. Thousands of such claims are filed every year. The first complaint was filed in response to the FBI’s illegal investigation into his 2016 campaign and a special counsel investigation into supposed ties between candidate Trump and Russia. The second complaint was filed in relation to the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified documents, which involved an FBI raid on Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ typically decides whether to pay a claim against the government. “To date, Trump has not taken any public step to enforce his claim,” The Washington Post admits. “Under the law, if the government does not pay a claim within six months, the claimant has the right to sue in court. Trump hasn’t done so.”
A possible scenario is that Trump reaches a settlement with the DOJ, but Trump did not say that any negotiations were underway. This is where it gets thorny. Some of the defense attorneys who represented Trump in filing his claims are now top Justice Department officials with whom he would be negotiating. When asked about this last week, Trump openly confessed, “I don’t know, how do you settle the lawsuit? I’ll say, ‘Give me X dollars,’ and I don’t know what to do with the lawsuit,” Trump said. “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right? So I don’t know. But that was a lawsuit that was very strong, very powerful.”
This all came to the forefront at the same time as construction began on the new East Wing ballroom, and left-wingers are crying foul. The announcement for the much-needed ballroom came back in July when Trump declared, “The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits. The East Wing was constructed in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times, with a second story added in 1942.”
Once the demolition started on Monday, the lamentations and gnashing of teeth began pouring in. Minnesota Democrat Senator Tina Smith posted on X, “Seeing the White House torn apart is really emblematic of the times we’re in.” Maria Shriver posted a picture and cried, “This breaks my heart and it infuriates me. Hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new ballroom.”
They forgot to mention that the $250 million came from donors; no taxpayer dollars will be used to construct the new ballroom. Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday, “The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly. This Ballroom will be happily used for Generations to come!”
This private funding is also the reason why the construction project can proceed despite the government shutdown.
Others contend that the ballroom is unnecessary and that it’s destroying historic parts of the White House complex, though they specifically omit the parts of history that undermine their claim.
National Review’s Jim Geraghty illustrates: “Presidents have broad latitude for making changes to the White House grounds. Theodore Roosevelt added a tennis court, George H.W. Bush had a half-court basketball court built on the White House grounds in 1991, and Obama had the half-court adapted to a full-size court.” Those changes arguably enhanced the practicality and purpose of the diplomatic government residence for the president of the most powerful nation on earth. Critics also overlook the fact that Harry Truman oversaw extensive renovations during his presidency, completely gutting and rebuilding the interior of the White House, which was in disrepair.
Some suggest that the Trump admin didn’t follow a rigorous enough review process and bypassed the National Capital Planning Commission, an agency with broad regulatory power over construction projects in the DC area.
In keeping with the law, Trump appointed three new members to the NCPC. William Scharf, one of the three appointees, refuted the claim: “This commission does not have jurisdiction. It has long denied that it has jurisdiction over demolition and site preparation work for federal buildings on federal property. … Any assertion that this commission should have been consulted earlier than it has been, or than it will be, is simply false and represents a misunderstanding of this commission’s role in that project.”
The best by far, though, was when Hillary Clinton decided to get in on the action. She took to X on Tuesday, joining the mob, “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.”
Oh boy, did she get roasted. “Yes, between selling nights in the Lincoln bedroom to donors and her husband’s tutelage of the interns in the Oval Office, if anyone treated the WH as sacred it was the Clintons,” writer Mark Hemingway mocked on X. Alex Pfeiffer, a former White House staffer, quipped, “A Clinton would never defile the White House.” The lampooning got even better when more historical facts were brought into the spotlight: “I remember when the Clintons stole the people’s furniture and tableware,” conservative columnist David Harsanyi tweeted, alluding to the fact that the Clintons took $28,000 in furnishings that belonged to the White House’s permanent collection and hundreds of thousands of dollars in flatware when Bill left office in 2001.
It just doesn’t get any better than that. An ex-first lady who stole and made millions from her time in the White House, attempting to demean a president who doesn’t take a paycheck, who paid out of his own pocket for the new flagpoles and the Rose Garden overhaul, is privately funding the ballroom project, and will donate any money he receives from a settlement with the DOJ to charity. This is certainly an upgrade. Trump has done more to restore the White House to its proper glory, both literally and figuratively, and bring pride to the American people. And it’s not even close.
