President Donald Trump on Sunday night broke out some props as he spoke with reporters on Air Force One about one of his biggest obsessions.
With the war in Iran passing the one-month mark, the stock market plunging into correction territory, gas prices soaring by $1 a gallon or more over the past month, and the partial shutdown of the federal government entering its seventh week, the president showed off oversized renderings of the ballroom he is trying to have built at the White House.
“This is a view of the columns as they are going to be made, they’re gonna be hand-carved, isn’t that beautiful? Top of the line,” Trump said as he displayed the image below. “They’ll be Corinthian, which is considered the best, most beautiful, by far.”
MANDEL NGAN via Getty Images
As Trump displayed the images, he claimed that people were talking about “how beautiful” the ballroom was, and said it would be needed to host foreign leaders, such as Chinese President Xi Jinping. He also said the military was building a “massive complex” beneath the ballroom.
Over the weekend, The New York Times published a report that said the “rushed” project was full of design flaws, including stairs to nowhere and columns that would block the view. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on X, slamming the authors as people who had “never built anything” and defending the project as “a beautiful ballroom that’s been needed for decades.”
But critics pointed out that the 90,000-square-foot ballroom was far larger than the White House’s 55,000-square-foot main residence, and others slammed Trump for demolishing the East Wing to make way for the structure without first seeking public input. The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, a nonprofit that oversees the preservation of historic structures, has also filed a lawsuit that could slow or even stop the project.
Trump’s lengthy aside about his ballroom left critics aghast, especially given everything else going on that would seem to require the president’s attention:
