OCTOBER 2025 – The NYT’s indomitable Maureen Dowd weighed in last week on Trump’s latest real-estate project – which began with his unchecked demolition of a wing of a dwelling that doesn’t even belong to him. Her essay covers much of the ground of other left-wing pundits, as she quotes David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel – but Dowd by nature is an independent voice, and that voice carries a certain authority now. She’s been penning wise-cracky, smarty-pants, quirkily written columns for the last 35 years, and much of it containing real reporting (i.e., fresh quotes) and worth-printing insights. (A memorable example: She once sat down in a New England diner and interviewed the crusty, suspicious Bernie Sanders, and revealed Sanders as a frustrated-to-the-point-of-angry pol.)
As many have concluded at this point, Trump’s ballroom build is less about the building itself than it is about his provocative behavior, his general contempt for everyone (not simply his enemies), and the powerful symbolism of actual back-hoes smashing down a historic building.
From last week’s column:
Trump’s talent is finding wormholes in the system that he can exploit for his own satisfaction or financial gain — things that are not specifically outlawed because it never occurred to the founders or anyone else that a lowlife could rise so high.
The White House probably needed a larger indoor entertainment space – but 90,000 square feet for 1,000 people? And building a Walmart-box appendage that will dwarf the existing historic house? A proportional-size ballroom for 500-600 would have been plenty – besides, no one can shake more than 500 hands in one evening in any case.
Just more of the same from a man who willfully breaks things – and then takes credit for fixing the small portion that he broke.
The president has the kind of blot-out-the-sun narcissism that spurs him to do whatever it takes to keep all eyes on him. He ignores the law, procedures, consequences.
It’s a slam-dance presidency that delights in transgressing and provoking.
Build a $300 million, 90,000-square-foot gilt ballroom — which will overshadow the central edifice — while the government is shut and people have been thrown out of work; plaster tacky gold all over the Oval; sue everyone willy-nilly; put foes through legal torture; send troops to American cities; shrug off due process and blow alleged drug runners out of the water.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/opinion/trump-white-house-east-wing-demolition.html