https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-look-at-trumps-effort-to-reshape-the-white-house-in-his-image

The White House announced plans for one of the largest renovations of the executive mansion in decades, a 90,000-square-foot state ballroom that will be built in the East Wing of the White House complex.

The cost is some $200 million, with construction set to begin in September. The White House says it'll be funded by donations from President Trump and other private donors

Donald Trump, President of the United States: We have been planning it for a long time. They have wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there's never been a president that was good at ballroom. I'm really good.

>>1424014 (OP)
>This is where all the cuts went to
>Not reducing debt
>Not programs to help americans
>A fucking ballroom

He is driving this effort behind the scenes.

This is something that he has been on a mission to have built all the way back at least until 2010. I spoke with David Axelrod, who was an adviser to then-President Obama. He got a call from Donald Trump, then just a man on the outside, offering initially to help with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, you might remember.

Then, when that was solved, he called back and he said, hey, I can build ballrooms. You need a ballroom. These tents are no good. Typically, state dinners have been held in tents because the largest event space at the White House is the East Room, and it only holds maybe about 200 people seated for dinner.

So Trump called and tried to get Axelrod to let him build a ballroom at the White House. That didn't work out. Trump has never forgotten the slight. And over the last 15 years, he has talked about this repeatedly. We know now that in the last few months, he's had a number of meetings to get this going.

And he has been very serious, and now it's really happening.

And this is the latest in a string of Trump era changes to the White House. You have got the redesigned Rose Garden. You have got those towering flagpoles. You have got the gold accents all over the Oval Office.

The president is putting his stamp on the presidency with his expansive view of executive power. And he is also very much putting a stamp on the executive mansion, on the White House, all the way down to the medallions above the light fixtures in the Cabinet Room, which he insisted that they have installed because he thought that it just didn't look right before.

He is doing this personally. It is — this is a hobby. He says it gets his builder juices flowing. And you can't forget that that is where he started. It's part of his origin story. And it's clearly something that he is preoccupied with.

>>1424015
And the White House says the $200 million price tag will be covered by President Trump and so-called patriot donors.

What kinds of ethical questions does that raise, especially around donor influence? And then there's a host of potential conflicts of interest.

Yes, I think we don't have a lot of clarity at this point on who these donors are.

I asked the White House. They said that they expect them to remain anonymous unless people announce — they want to announce it themselves. And it is the case that, with many projects at the White House, it's not funded by the American people. Many aspects of the upkeep of the White House, the art, the drapery, some of these things, are actually funded by outside groups that are nonprofits that raise money through donations.

And the timing is notable because, just last week, the president criticized the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, for what he called luxurious and expensive renovations at the Federal Reserve.

So what kind of transparency can the public expect around this new White House project in terms of the cost and the budget?

I don't think that the public can expect a lot of transparency. As we know, with many things involving the White House and the executive branch, no matter the administration, but let's be honest, especially this administration, there just isn't a lot of transparency.

And especially because this is being funded by outside donors and not being paid for by the taxpayers, it's just very hard to get information out of the White House, until 25 years later, when it shows up in the National Archives.

The White House from now on and in the future will be known as tRump's White House. He will never win a Noball Peace prize, but he will be remembered for putting up some real big flagpoles and having a big ballroom

$200M ballroom? Frankly orangelet, I don't give a damn. Atlanta maybe burning a second time, but orangelet don't give a damn

>>1424019
The most transparent administration ever. Transparently corrupt, that is.

>>1424026
He'll be remembered as the man who destroyed the USA.

>>1424014 (OP)
This just adds on to the impression of him running the country as if it's his private property. This isn't how democracy is supposed to work

>>1424141
>This isn't how democracy is supposed to work
Anon...

Trump got "gifted" a jet from Qatar that will cost $1 billion to retrofit to AF1 standards.

>>1424145
It was a $1tn retrofit.
This is exactly what doge was always about. Take away all public services and then use our TAX money to build trump q ballroom

>>1424014 (OP)
There's an old saying: 'Let them eat cake'. As a result of this 'plan', an older saying springs to mind: 'May you live in interesting times'.
But it's not the Republicans or Trump who'll be saying the latter. But they're basically said the former, though.

>>1424014 (OP)
So eggs are down? How many stripper poles can we get up in dair?

>>1424296
Care to answer, Ms. Daniels?

>>1424014 (OP)
Christ that is fucking disgusting.

>>1424329
It's ironic. The more gold he puts on something, the cheaper it looks. I don't understand his obsession with over-gilding.

>>1424333
He's shallow.

>>1424333
It's a boomer newyawker thing.

>>1424401
It looks like piss is what it is.

>>1424014 (OP)
I thought it said bathroom and wasn't surprised at all.

>successfully elect Trump
>six months later he paves over the rose garden and redecorates the interior of the white house in cum-colored paint with golden trim

>>1424333
You know that thing that happens in some cartoons where a character wins the lottery or suddenly gets a big company or whatever and they start doing extremely conspicuous and impractical displays of wealth until they inevitably lose it all at the end of the episode? That's Trump's entire existence. Fat fuck's been Nouveau Rich his entire life, he has absolutely no sense of class or aesthetic outside of Expensive=Good. Meanwhile, the true upper class laughs at him behind his back.

No one cares that he's doing a renovation. This shit shouldn't cost more than a million at the absolute high end
>>1424408
Seething mentally ill tranny

>>1424413
Trump was just talking about the renovations taking 3B last week, dipshit

I thought PBS was defunded.

>>1424470
They've always gotten a percentage of funding from viewers, NGOs, and foundations. Now they'll fund it 100% instead of 80% like they did before. Congrats, republicans, by getting rid of the ties to the government they are free to be even more leftist.

>>1424511
They were never leftists to begin with. Everything seems leftist when you're a far right demagogue.