Two of Donald Trump’s most vocal media critics just blasted the president over his scandalous partial demolition of “one of the most historic structures on the planet” to make way for a new dance floor.
“It’s hard to watch that, and it’s hard to believe that any president could destroy the White House and take a wrecking ball to an existing structure so historic,” host Joe Scarborough raged on Tuesday morning’s broadcast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “That’s what’s happening. It would be one thing if you were building on or you were doing things inside. But to take literally a wrecking ball to the White House… it’s grotesque, just grotesque!”
Trump first announced plans for his over-the-top new ballroom in July. The space will clock in at around 90,000 square feet and be able to accommodate approximately 900 guests, which is significantly more than the East Room, the current largest space in the White House, which seats around 200.
Along with his renovations to the White House Rose Garden, the $250 million ballroom project—which the president insists he will be paying for himself and with the help of private donors rather than taxpayers—fulfills Trump’s longstanding dream, harbored since the Barack Obama administration, of leaving his mark on America’s most instantly recognizable landmark.
While the president says the ballroom will be “beautiful, top, top of the line,” many of his critics have watched in horror as demolition crews closed in on the white walls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday.
“It’s history being torn to shreds... So if somebody wants to go into the White House, the next person wants to just knock down all the walls and turn it into a disco, Congress can’t do anything,” Scarborough continued Tuesday morning. “Seriously, you’re destroying, like, one of the most historic structures on the planet.”
Mika Brzezinski, Scarborough’s co-host and wife, added that it was “painful” to watch what she described as someone treating what is effectively public property as if it was “your home that you purchased in Jersey.”
“No, it’s not yours,” Scarborough agreed. “You rent it from the American people for four years.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for a response to the Morning Joe hosts’ comments, but MAGA officials have already made clear their displeasure at critics voicing outrage over the building work.
“Construction has always been a part of the evolution of the White House,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung wrote on X Monday. “Losers who are quick to criticize need to stop their pearl-clutching and understand the building needs to be modernized. Otherwise, you’re just living in the past.”
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has meanwhile posted vintage pictures of the West Wing under construction in 1934, and of renovations undertaken by the Truman administration between 1948 and 1952. “And President Trump is not costing the taxpayers a dime!” she wrote.
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