“I doubled the size of it, you dumb person,” President Donald Trump told a reporter asking about his White House ballroom project. “You are not a smart person.”
According to a description of the project on the White House website, the 90,000 square foot ballroom is expected to have a capacity of 650. To make way for the new addition to the president’s official residence, the East Wing of the White House was demolished last October.
Since then, the president's description of the size and cost of the ballroom have fluctuated, as The Hill pointed out. He had originally said the cost would be $200 million, but it has since escalated to $400 million. When pressed on that issue, he got angry. MS NOW identified the reporter he snapped at as its Akayla Gardner.
“You wanted [Federal Reserve Chair] Jerome Powell fired for cost overruns,” Gardner said, referring to the Fed’s ongoing renovation project at its Washington headquarters. “How is that different than your ballroom and the reflecting pool?”
Gardner noted that the price has doubled. Trump replied that he had doubled the size of it.
Trump has wanted to build a ballroom for the White House since before he took office, and this is the latest bump in the road for the president's ballroom dream. The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States requested a preliminary injunction to halt construction of a ballroom that was granted by a Judge Richard J. Leon on March 31.
While Leon’s order allowed actions related to presidential and national security to continue at the site, he issued a follow up opinion in April that clarified the whole project could not proceed. Following an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month, Senate Republicans added $1 billion in White House security upgrades at the ballroom to legislation, though NBC News reported this week that GOP lawmakers “remained torn” over spending that much in taxpayer funds in the project.
The East Wing before the ballroom addition had a 200-person capacity, according to the Trump administration. Over the years, the East Wing had been renovated a number of times. It was designed by James Hoban and first President George Washington to serve as a public audience room. Due to its limited size, events at the White House were sometimes held outside.
Previously, the Trump administration argued that the entire project was a matter of national security, and it includes an underground bunker area. If the ballroom construction is completed, the structure is expected to be as tall as the White House itself.
This isn’t the first time during his second term that the president has lashed out at reporters.
“Quiet! Quiet piggy,” Trump snapped at a reporter while speaking to the press aboard Air Force One last November. She was asking about the ongoing controversy around the Jeffrey Epstein files.
