Comment: White House didn’t need Trump’s Mar-a-Lago makeover

Published 1:30 am Monday, October 27, 2025

By Nia-Malika Henderson / Bloomberg Opinion

Call it the billionaires’ ballroom.

This week, President Donald Trump began demolishing part of the East Wing of the White House to construct a $250 million entertainment venue bankrolled by some of the world’s deepest pockets. The pictures of a digger tearing into the White House are nothing less than shocking, a symbol of Trump’s disregard for American institutions and values; and his embrace of a new Gilded Age.

At some 90,000 square feet, the lavish ballroom is nearly double the size of the main complex, which is 55,000 square feet. The White House press office called it a “grand ballroom — a transformative addition that will significantly increase the White House’s capacity to host major functions honoring world leaders, foreign nations and other dignitaries.”

Somehow, other presidents have managed to host and honor foreign leaders and dignitaries just fine for all these many years. President Ronald Reagan and actor John Travolta danced with Princess Diana in November 1985 in the White House’s entrance hall. It was epic and iconic and very American. Large state dinners have often been held in tents on the White House lawn. And they have been fabulous and elegant affairs. President Jimmy Carter feted President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel in March 1979 for a state dinner that included 1,340 guests to mark the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.

The White House is supposed to be the “The People’s House,” not a palace; special, yet accessible.

Trump, of gold-plated toilets and nouveau riche tchotchkes, has other ideas.

He seems to think Americans should be pleased, even proud that patriotic and oh-so-generous billionaires are footing the bill for this party venue, rather than taxpayers. Yet, it is this arrangement that makes the whole project reek of pay-to-play cronyism.

“I considered this in the abstract before, and it’s one thing to talk about it in the abstract, but when you see the photos and the demolition, it’s jarring,” says Ed Lengel, former chief historian of the White House Historical Association. “It makes me even more nervous about it when it’s built. The construction of this new ballroom absolutely changes the nature of the building itself and what it represents. It will become an entertainment mecca for the elite.”

It is the White House as Mar-a-Lago. The Rose Garden, which dates back to First Lady Edith Roosevelt, has already been paved over for a Florida-style patio. Now this ballroom will stand as a garish monument to one man’s taste for gold-plated everything, from meaningless crests to seals and bric-a-brac. Next up? A plan to build an arch that mimics Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. But first, there is remaking the White House into a poor and thirsty man’s Versailles.

Treasury Department employees have been instructed not to share photos of the grand ballroom construction, according to the Wall Street Journal. And Trump has tried to downplay the significant changes to the White House footprint.

“It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it; and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” Trump said during an executive order signing in July. “It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”

Perhaps in Trump’s mind, the “current building” doesn’t include the East Wing, which has historically housed the offices of the First Lady and her staff.

To be sure, the White House has undergone other notable renovation projects, including the addition of a pool and a bowling alley as occupants crafted the space to fit their tastes. The original East Wing was constructed as an entrance for White House guests during President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration. The most recent change came during President Franklin Roosevelt’s tenure, when it was expanded to cover a security bunker and to accommodate First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s ambitious vision for her role.

“For alumni who worked in the East Wing, the images left them stunned. A lot of history and good work of purpose happened in those walls,” one source emailed me. “It’s still important to preserve the history that happened there.”

But this administration seems to care little about preserving American history, as an attempt to give one of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s ceremonial swords to King Charles suggests, not to mention the proposed changes to the Smithsonian.

White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung has responded to the criticism with characteristic bombast.

“Construction has always been a part of the evolution of the White House,” Cheung wrote on X. “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.”

This is not a modernization project akin to the updates from prior administrations. This is Trump putting his irreversible and garish stamp on the White House to make it more like a presidential palace. This is antithetical to what the White House has symbolized, here and abroad. This renovation is a throwback to the Gilded Age. And that’s the impulse that should be consigned to the past.

Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.