John,
When Donald Trump first talked about building a “beautiful ballroom” at the White House, most of the media rolled their eyes.
They covered it as a joke — another gaudy, golden fantasy from a man consumed by his own ego.
But this week, the joke ended when images of the historic East Wing of the White House being demolished went viral:
Many were horrified by the images of the People’s House being destroyed for a vanity project — funded by companies like Apple, Amazon, and Meta that Trump extorted into donating.
The demolition has no congressional approval, no transparency, and no oversight. And it’s happening during a government shutdown.
It’s the act of a king, not a president. So how did the legacy media miss the gravity of the moment?
Trump’s destruction of the East Wing was a slow train coming. For months, the press mocked the idea of a “gold ballroom,” but few connected the dots — that Trump’s corporate-funded vanity project would literally come at the expense of demolishing the White House itself.
The East Wing is where President Obama and his national security team watched the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
It’s where Reagan and Gorbachev began the talks that helped end the Cold War.
And it’s where generations of First Ladies launched programs that changed the country.
Now it’s being destroyed in plain sight — and many in the media are acting like they didn’t see it coming.
The media’s failure here isn’t an accident — it’s a toxic brew of incentives and fear.
Their addiction to Trump’s chaos for ratings, their reflexive need to “both-sides” everything, and their fear of his wrath and the MAGA mob when they dare to hold him accountable have created the perfect storm of cowardice and complicity.
It’s a shocking dereliction of duty — and it’s why we need COURIER.
While legacy media chases Trump’s circus, we report on what actually matters.
We tell the truth — clearly, urgently, and in the online spaces where most Americans actually get their news. We’re building the largest network of progressive, fact-based newsrooms in the country to expose Trump’s corruption and the institutions that enable it.
We can’t keep growing without support from people like you.
Because this isn’t just a construction project. It’s a warning.
When a president tears down history and builds a monument to his own vanity to replace it, democracy itself is in peril.
In solidarity,
The COURIER Team