Part of the White House Is Being Demolished as Construction of Trump’s Ballroom Begins

TIME

The construction of President Donald Trump’s planned $250 million White House ballroom has officially begun, and it appears to involve the demolition of part of the East Wing.

Transcript

00:00We determined that after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects

00:05in the world, we determined that really knocking it down, trying to use a little section, you know,

00:10the East Wing was not much. It was not much left from the original. It was over the course of

00:17a hundred years. It was changed. The columns were removed and it was a much different building.

00:22Then a story was added on in 1948, 1949. There was a story added on, which was not particularly nice.

00:29And the building was very, very much changed from what it was originally. It was never thought of as

00:35being much. It was a very small building. It's about $300 million. It's set to do many, many things,

00:41including meetings of foreign leaders, including the honoring of foreign leaders. It's an interior

00:47shot of the ballroom. I think there'll be nothing like it. And it's being paid for 100 percent by me

00:53and some friends of mine, donors, to it. The government's paying absolutely nothing. We are

00:59using little sections of footings and various other things, but that's sort of irrelevant.

01:04In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure. The way it was shown,

01:09it looked like we were touching the White House. We don't touch the White House. That's a bridge,

01:13a glass bridge going from the White House to the ballroom. I haven't been transparent.

01:17I've shown this to everybody that would listen. Third-rate reporters didn't see it because they

01:24didn't look. You're a third-rate reporter, always have been. So third-rate reporters didn't look,

01:30but anybody that asked, these pictures have been in newspapers. They've been all over the place,

01:36and we're very proud of it. It's gotten great reviews. It's gotten really great reviews.

01:41I think we've been more transparent than anybody's ever.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended