“Ripping apart the White House just like he’s ripping apart the Constitution,” read California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s post on X.
Hillary Clinton posted, “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.”
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren fumed, “Oh, you’re trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing? Donald Trump can’t hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom.”
California Democrat Representative Mark Takano’s obtuse post read: “Americans go without paychecks, Trump’s turning the White House into his pet construction project.” Never mind the fact that it is Senate Democrats who continue to hold the government hostage as they refuse to vote to pass a continuing resolution to end their shutdown and fund the government.
“They’re wrecking it,” stated Martha Joynt Kumar, political science professor emeritus at Towson University in Maryland. “They’re destroying that history forever.”
Responding to that sort of nuttery, Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley observed, “These are the same people who tore down every statue they could get their hands on in the last four years.”
In any case, that’s a flavor of the responses that have been repeated this week by primarily Democrats and others on the Left after construction crews began work on the White House for Donald Trump’s ballroom.
To be fair, change can be hard. But usually, that is something most adults have learned to accept, especially given the context and history of the changes made at the White House over the generations. While Trump has launched one of the biggest renovations and expansions of the White House, arguably, Harry Truman’s gutting and rebuilding of the entire interior was more extreme.
Furthermore, many Leftmedia pundits have argued that it is the wrong time to begin this construction project because the government is shut down. That’s simply nonsense.
In the first place, the vast majority of Americans are still working, earning their paychecks, and feeling little to no impact from the ongoing shutdown. And it’s a shutdown that Senate Democrats started and continue to refuse to end.
The more salient fact is that taxpayers are not paying for this project. Private donors are willingly footing the bill, which is ensuring that these construction workers on the project are still working and earning a paycheck. In truth, Trump’s doing more to keep people employed than are the likes of Senator Warren whining about “the cost of living skyrocketing.” Where was she when the cost of living was actually skyrocketing under Joe Biden? Oh, that’s right — she was voting for the laws that caused it.
How do Democrats respond to that? House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries threatened the donors. “These people are going to be held accountable,” he warned, “no matter how long it takes.”
Where objecting Democrats do have a legitimate, although minor, beef is the scale of the project.
When Trump first announced his ballroom expansion, he said, “It will be beautiful. It will be views of the Washington Monument. It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be — it will be near it but not touching it.”
Well, with the project now demolishing the entire East Wing, Trump’s statement that the White House is not being touched rings hollow. Of course, it’s Washington, and that means semantics games. Did Trump actually mean the original White House Residence?
Regardless, the fact that the project will now entail an entire reconstruction of the East Wing with the massive new ballroom does not validate the Democrats’ objections.
The truth is, there has likely been no president better suited for a construction project like this than Trump. When it is complete, it will be better than before and will likely become a well-used and loved part of the White House for many years to come. And the claim that it is unneeded belies reality. This ballroom provides the necessary space, security, and permanence to host foreign dignitaries, state dinners, and other significant events for large numbers of guests.
The primary reason for Democrats’ objection simply boils down to the fact that it’s Trump who’s doing it. It’s all just Trump Derangement Syndrome. Democrats are always looking to criticize Trump, and this is their latest issue. They don’t really care that Trump is renovating the East Wing and building a big new ballroom. In fact, many of them are likely secretly glad he’s building this much-needed expansion. But they hope to make enough hay over this renovation to win some votes.
