Americans have 300 million reasons to hate Trump's ballroom

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump held a news conference in the Oval Office in which he bragged about tearing down the entire East Wing of the White House for his pet ballroom project. The cost of the endeavor, which started at $200 million over the summer, is now a whopping $300 million.

Holding up pictures of the gilded ballroom—so hideously ostentatious it would make Saddam Hussein blush—Trump again claimed that the project is "paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine."

However, the White House is not releasing a full list of the donors, nor how much they are giving—making the whole thing reek of corruption and a possible pay to play scheme. 

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We do know some of the donors and how much they gave, such as Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, contributing $22 million. This was from a settlement for Trump being banned from YouTube after fomenting the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Other major company leaders attended a fundraising dinner at the White House for the project earlier in October, but it’s unclear just how much they ponied up to make Dear Leader happy to avoid possible retribution from the authoritarian wannabe occupying the White House.

Meanwhile, Trump said that he is now razing the entire East Wing of the White House to make way for the gigantic ballroom.

“In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure,” Trump said.

That's a total about-face from his previous insistence that the existing structure would not be touched.

“It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it,” Trump said in July when he first announced the ballroom project. “And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”

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Ultimately, Americans are not thrilled with Trump's vanity ballroom project.

A YouGov survey released on Tuesday found 50% of Americans disapprove of Trump demolishing the East Wing for his ballroom—40% of whom disapprove strongly. The question was asked before Trump said the entire East Wing was being razed, and only asked respondents if they approved of the partial demolition of the existing structure. That means the ultimate percentage of people disapproving of the project could very well be higher.

YouGov also found that just 23% of Americans think the ballroom will have a positive impact on the White House.

Of course, it's no wonder the polling is so bad. 

The optics of Trump building a gold-encrusted ballroom while at the same time saying that the country is deeply in debt and we can't afford to help Americans afford groceries or health care is tone deaf beyond belief.

“The White House belongs to the American people, not to one person. Past presidents rightly consulted with Congress before construction projects,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) wrote in a post on X. “Donald Trump taking a wrecking ball to one of America's greatest symbols is awful and illegal, and sadly also an accurate metaphor.”

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