There is a good case for modernising the composition of the White House. The State Dining Room can host just 140 guests (about as many as a standard wedding) and the East Room’s capacity is only marginally better at 200. For state dinners and other events with more swollen guest lists, a giant tent has to be set up on the lawns outside the building, at great expense. People I know who have been in these tents reckon they’re pretty flash, and not exactly the type you’d pick up from BCF or Anaconda. But the giant tent is still a little embarrassing, and impractical.
I know all this will probably be an unpopular view with some readers. But there has been support for what Trump is doing in some quarters. In a piece titled “In defence of the White House ballroom”, The Washington Post editorial board said that in classic Trump fashion, “the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible”.
“Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating,” the board said.
“Preservationists express horror that Trump did not submit his plans to their scrutiny, but the truth is this project would not have gotten done – certainly not during his term – if the president had gone through the traditional review process. The blueprints would have faced death by a thousand cuts.”
The board noted the White House had gone through many changes in its history. It also explained the tortured and long history of the modest Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington DC, which took two decades to go from authorisation to completion. “By contrast, Eisenhower planned and executed D-Day in about six months,” the Post noted.
Amazon, which was founded by the Post’s owner Jeff Bezos, is one of dozens of major companies that have donated to fund the ballroom’s estimated $US300 million ($457 million) cost. Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Google, and NBCUniversal parent company Comcast are among the others stumping up.
For me, a final view on whether Trump’s big build is a good or bad thing will come down to the execution of it, rather than the idea itself.
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I have also found it jarring that there has been more outrage over the demolition of a relatively boring building than there has been concerning Trump’s open musings about running for a third term, which is prohibited under the Constitution.
As the White House reno debate raged on the ground, a reporter aboard Air Force One asked Trump on Tuesday about the prospect of serving a third term, and whether he could potentially run as vice president and then slide into the presidency again after the 2028 election.
Trump gushed that he’d “love to” serve a third term and even suggested he had been given advice that the vice president switcheroo ploy would be legal. He did, though, then acknowledge that wouldn’t pass the pub test and he wouldn’t seek to do it.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, has also told The Economist there was a plan to get around the pesky 22nd amendment – which limits a president from serving more than two terms of four years. “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is,” he said. “But there is a plan.”
Trump on Wednesday said outright that he was not allowed to run for a third term. But his continued flirtation with the idea earlier in the week, when any other president wouldn’t entertain it, was unsettling.
Surely, an assault on the 22nd amendment should be the source of more outrage than the construction of a fancy new ballroom.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
