The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Tears Down The White House East Wing To Build A Ballroom

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

The Trump administration broke ground this week on a new White House ballroom, demolishing the White House’s East Wing in the process. We discuss why the project is controversial and who is paying the $300 million bill.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Amazon and Google are financial supporters of NPR and Amazon pays to distribute some of our content.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

NPR is a special place where music journalism and discovery remains freely accessible. Public Radio Music Day is coming, but you don't have to wait until October 29th to show your support. Amplify the sound of public media today. Visit donate.npr.org. Hey, everybody, Miles Parks here. Before we start today's show, I have a quick and exciting announcement for you. The NPR Politics Podcast turns 10 years old this fall. We grow up so fast. And to celebrate, we are doing a live show later this month. That's right, a live show with a live audience, and you can be a part of it. Come join me and some of the other voices you hear every day in person in Washington on Thursday, October 30th.

You can find information on tickets and more at npr.org slash politics live show. Again, npr.org slash politics live show. All right, here's today's show. Hi, this is Casey from Chicago, Illinois. I'm currently on my layover at the Madrid airport after finishing the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile walk across Spain after taking the bar exam this summer. This podcast was recorded at 12.35 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, October 23rd, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll probably be home and I'll be starting my new job as a public defender. Okay, here's the show.

Congratulations, those are two very big accomplishments. That is an overachiever that does not take breaks. Let me walk 500 miles after passing the bar. After a day, I was going to say, I've had friends who were studying for the bar that did not look like people who could walk 500 miles afterwards. I think you're just supposed to let your brain melt. Anyway, hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor. and correspondent. And today on the show, we're going to be talking about a different kind of home renovation. You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back. You hear that sound? Oh, that's music to my ears. I love that sound. That, of course, is President Trump speaking earlier this week. He is tearing down the east wing of the White House to make way for a massive ballroom. Tam, can we start with the basics here, though? Can you describe this ballroom that Trump is building and why he says that this is needed in the first place? The ballroom President Trump wants to build is 90,000 square feet.

That is larger than the existing White House residents, just to give you a sense of scale. The reason President Trump wants a ballroom is that there isn't a room really big enough at the White House to host the kind of state dinners and other large events that the president would like to hold at the White House. In fact, going back to at least 2010, he has been pitching the idea of building a White House ballroom, in part because state dinners, when it's like a big one and a lot of people, they want to invite a lot of people, they have to put up a tent on the south lawn of the White House. A very nice tent, a glamorous tent, but still a tent. And President Trump says he wants a ballroom instead. But as you say, it is causing some disruption.

Yeah. I also imagine it's not inexpensive, something that big probably costs a lot of money. Can we talk about that? So initially when it was announced in July, the White House said it would cost $200 million. Yesterday, that number was higher. President Trump is now saying it's a $300 million ballroom. And earlier, they said it was going to seat 650 people. Now the president says it will seat 999, but he says don't want to go to 1,000 because then people would talk.

Yeah, I think it's fascinating that Trump is deciding that this is something that is needed and that he wants to do, you know, considering how he went to the Fed and was so upset with the Federal Reserve and Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, not just for not lowering interest rates, but because of this construction there that he said had gotten out of control. It's almost as if Trump wants to be able to just control whatever the construction winds up being because he really likes construction. Well, and let's just put this in the context, right? Like, he has also completely changed the Rose Garden. It used to have a lawn. Now it is a patio, and he calls it the Rose Garden Club. That happened already very quickly in this administration. He has gilded the Oval Office.

There is gold everywhere. I was just in there this week. It is remarkable where all the gold is now. Like every place where it used to be plaster, there's gold. Yeah, but those projects don't seem to be quite as visually different as what we're seeing right now. And before we sort of get to where this project is now, I do want to talk about what Trump said when he announced this project in July. He said it would basically be in addition to the property. It won't interfere with the current building.

I won't be near it. not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of. It's my favorite place. I love it. But now, you know, the entire East Wing is pretty much gone. Like, what has changed? Now a White House official is telling me that as soon as this weekend, the entire East Wing of the White House could be done being demolished. And that would take the demolition all the way right up to the edge of the White House.

the White House residents. The East Wing has housed offices for the First Lady and other offices. It has a colonnod. And all of that, all of that is being ripped out as we speak. Yesterday in the Oval Office, President Trump was kind of like, yeah, you know, the East Wing, it's not that hot. And we just had to get rid of it. It's just odd seeing him hold up these papers, you know, posters showing, you know, what the construction is going to look like, what the images are going to be. He's doing this in a meeting with, you know, the NATO Secretary General, where they're supposed to be talking about things like Ukraine, which they did talk about as well. But he went and did the weave, as he calls it, and was wound up talking about this and clearly was prepared because he had all the papers with him. And it goes again to the idea of just how much Trump values these kinds of optics, whether it's the gold leaf or a giant ballroom that he wants to see to be able to house these state dinners.

Yeah, I mean, questionable optics, though, right? Because, you know, there are some questions about historical preservation here. A number of groups concerned with historic preservation, a group of architects, and then the National Trust for Historic Preservation both wrote letters saying, stop the demolition, please. weight, go through the regular process. The trust for historical preservation is concerned that a 90,000 square foot ballroom is just going to like throw off the balance of the White House, which itself is only 55,000 square feet and would disrupt, they say, the carefully balanced classical design of the White House. It could sort of overshadow the core residence, you know, the building that everybody thinks of as the White House. I reached out to the White House Historical Association.

They gave me a statement describing the efforts that were undertaken before the demolition began. They said that there was a comprehensive digital scanning project, photographing and creating a historic record of the East Wing. The East Wing and gardens were captured in detail and historic artifacts were preserved and stored. I also know that even the plants, the trees and bushes, around the East Wing were preserved and have been taken away for safekeeping as this work takes place. The White House insists that the East Wing will be rebuilt and restored and modernized and that it won't just go away when the ballroom is put in place, but will be replaced with a new East Wing. Yeah. And look, the preservation stuff is really interesting because past presidents

have gone through a process to try to get all of the players involved. all the stakeholders to sign off, approve of what the plans might be, because obviously the White House has gone through lots of changes through the years. It certainly doesn't look exactly like it did when it was first built. I think this comes back to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, what Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law. But Section 107 of that exempts the White House Capitol and the Supreme Court from having to go through these processes. But past presidents have gone through the process to try to show that kind of deference and respect. And there's a lot of debate about just how much a president is supposed to go through that process. Yeah, obviously a lot

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And as you heard in that clip at the very beginning of the pod, President Trump says he's paying for it. We don't know how much he is actually contributing. What we do know is that the White House has secured pledges of $200 million so far from a long list of donors. They have released this list. And it is sort of a who's who, a fortune 500. companies and others who have business before the United States government, as well as long-time friends and supporters of President Trump, like the Adelson Family Foundation. But it includes Amazon, Booz Allen Hamilton, meta. As part of settling a civil suit filed by President Trump

when he was out of office, Google is donating more than $20 million to the trust for the National Mall, which is the organization that is sort of gathering the money to then have it be put towards the project. And there are lots of conflicts of interest here potentially, and certainly the perception of conflict of interest with a lot of these groups, whether it's donors who would be looking for more access to the president. And it certainly makes things like Bill Clinton, you know, allowing a donor to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom pale in comparison to these hundreds of millions of dollars that are

being supplied by people who have direct business with the U.S. government and direct interest with wanting to be in the president's ear. And last week they did hold a dinner in the east room of the White House for donors for this project. I do wonder, though, Domenica, with so many things, like how much this sort of breaks through. I mean, do we have a sense of whether this is something people are even that upset about? Well, you know, I mean, people hardly pay much attention to everything that happens inside the Beltway. But UGov did actually ask about whether or not people approve or disapprove of plans to renovate and build additions to the White House, including a new ballroom and a patio in the Rose Garden, as the president did earlier this year. And majority is disapproved of that.

I think that's often the case when it comes to, you know, traditional things. People don't generally like for things to be upended or changed. And I think that's why these things generally go through an approval of. process that has sign-off from all the stakeholders so that you don't upset people and you don't see images on TV that people are surprised by. Yeah. So, I mean, the White House is different from other executive residences around the world. It's not that big in comparison.

And it was never designed to be something like what a king would live in, right? Like, how does this reconstruction go against that history? Well, I mean, the founders were very key on not wanting to have opulent mansion. and palaces that reflected, say, you know, Versailles or something like that or what we see in the Middle East right now. Because America was breaking away from a monarchy. And, you know, that was the idea that they didn't want a president to appear to be all-powerful. That's why there were three co-equal branches of government. It's why there was a system of checks and balances. They didn't want a president to appear to be someone who had all of the centralized power.

otherwise they would have given a president those powers. And part of the idea is that the White House is the People's House and, you know, is supposed to be somewhat more humble compared to what we see in other countries. In fact, the earliest designs for the White House were going to be much larger that Pierre Lomfant had created the designs for. And they wound up with a different architect, made it a smaller footprint. Part of that was because of labor and resources. So we don't know exactly how large it might have been if they had. all the resources, but in general, it's come to be understood that the White House is the People's House and supposed to be more humble than what you see in other countries. Tam, how has the White House responded to all the backlash this week? You know, in a classically Trump White House way. They say that this is manufactured outrage and pearl clutching. And then they put out this fact sheet with just a ton of pictures in it that goes through the history of modifications to the White House. And in fact, over time, there have been many changes made to the White House. Initially,

it was just that mansion in the center. And then the East Wing and the West Wing were added. There was a tennis pavilion added. There have been additions and changes over the years. President Truman gutted the whole thing and had to rebuild because it was in disrepair. So there have been many changes to the White House over the years. And the White House says, why is everybody outraged now? Were you outraged when President Kennedy put in a rose garden? So that is their argument. And I will say that the White House Historical Association has made that argument to me in the past. They said, you know, this is a living, breathing structure. This is not set in amber or stone. And it has evolved over the years to adapt to different presidents. You know, there was outrage when

Michelle Obama put modern art in the White House. And of course, now there is a lot of outrage coming particularly from Democrats, but also from others that are nonpartisan, saying, wow, this is just a lot. Well, there was a swimming pool that was put in, a bowling alley that was put in at one time. You know, but nothing has ever been this large and, you know, to the size that it's going to be. And you know what? It may very well be beautiful, right? It may be something that becomes very useful for the country. We know it's something that Donald Trump has in the past wanted to do that the Obama administration ignored his desires to potentially help to design and create a larger ballroom. But I think the bigger issue here is that there's really been no debate. There's been very little transparency.

And while it may be great, it may wind up being a thing that Trump likes. This is something that he's putting a lasting mark on without anybody else weighing in. and it's something to scale that really hasn't been done before at the White House. Yeah. And I got to wonder how much of this is also a timing issue, right? Like the government is currently shut down while a demolition is happening in the East Wing Tam. I mean, I wonder how much you think the government shutdown has sort of played a role in the backlash to this. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely like a metaphor alert, right? Like you have these images of part of the White House being torn down while you also have images of government workers who aren't getting paid. lining up to get food donations. And so it is this really stark contrast. Now, the White House says it's privately funded. We don't need a budget to do this. And you know what? President Trump is just in a really big hurry. He wants to get this done. He wants to be able to use it while he's

president. And he wants it to be a permanent fixture before he's gone. Well, and he is in a reflective mood, right? I mean, he's almost 80 years old. This is his second term as president. He's constitutionally barred from serving any more terms. So he's looking back on what his legacy will be. And part of what he wants that legacy to look like is this opulence and something that he created and leaves a lasting impression on the country. And this certainly would do that. Yeah. A man who spent his career putting his name on buildings is a man who is concerned with legacy. And like, let's just say, he is putting his stamp on the physical plant that is this White House, but he is also putting his stamp on the presidency, vastly expanding executive

power or the interpretation of executive power. You know, he's going to do what he's going to do. And so this ballroom project is very much in line with the way he's approached his entire second term. All right. Let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Thank you.