Trump's Golden Ballroom Getting Bigger, Bigger, Bigger, Unlike His Approval Rating
(36 percent and tanking.)
With all of the war and famine threatening these here United States, there’s one thing dominating what remains of the mind of the President: his big billionaire-funded ballroom, full of GOLD!
And now Trumpelstiltskin’s skidmarks are all in a bunch over recent reports from the New York Times and Washington Post about his full-throttle “who’s-going-to-stop-me ethos” push to get his way to keep scaling the plans bigger and bigger, overriding his own hand-picked architect, ignoring city codes, and ousting six commissioners on the local preservation board.
Once completed, this gilt-drenched monstrosity of Chechen-warlord chic will be almost twice the size of the 55,000-square-foot White House itself at 90,000 square feet. Which is insane. More than twice the size of the Taj Mahal! The square footage of the house in The Queen of Versailles! The size of a Walmart! It will be able to hold 18,000 people standing, and they’ll each have five feet of personal space. And also there will be some kind of secure bunker underneath, in case Trump has to hide from protesters again. It’s sort of like Mrs. Astor’s ballroom, but for the select few to survive an apocalypse in style. Or perhaps a third inauguration.
The majority of Americans disapprove of this, and Donny Antoinette is chafing:
The plans started as seating for 500, and by the time the evil embodiment of Dress Barn, Karoline Leavitt, announced plans to the public in August, the capacity had grown to 650, and Trump was promising to “not touch” the existing White House structure. But now the East Wing has been torn the fuck out, apparently by Fat Tony’s wrecking crew, and the budget has also bloated from $200 million to $350 million.
Adherence to the local building codes will be on the honor system. Hope it won’t be made out of gold spray-painted breadsticks!
Private donations and funding, who might that be? A list of 37 donors was released, a passel of tech and crypto-bros jockeying to be in Trump’s good graces. The usual suspects! Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Comcast, Altria, Coinbase, Palantir Technologies, T-Mobile, and other companies. Plus some individuals, such as Jeffrey Epstein’s former neighbors the Lutnicks, former senator Kelly Loeffler (remember her?) and money guy husband Jeff Sprecher, Russian‑born private equity investor Konstantin Sokolov, Edward and Shari Glazer (owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman, and the Winklevoss twins.
NOT on the list: Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan, or any other banks. Why might that be?
Sounds like that guy is bearish on sanity returning! “We have to be very careful … how the next DOJ is going to deal with it. We’re quite conscious of risks we bear by doing anything that looks like buying favors or anything like that.”
Yep, while a company may be able to get away with what walks and quacks like a bribe in plain sight in Trump’s America, companies that care about the trust of clients in non-corrupt countries won’t touch this spectacle with noseplugs and 50-foot tongs.
And spectacle it will be! The old man went to Epstein-coverup lengths to get his way for this ballroom, installing his former personal lawyer, Will Scharf, as the chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, to insist there was no need to review Trump’s plans before he ordered the demolition of the East Wing.
Trump fired the entire board of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency that was established by Congress to advise the president on planning and historical preservation.
Now the architect, James McCrery II, has reportedly walked away from day-to-day duties, though he emphasizes this is for very normal reasons, and surely not because Trump is a client from hell and McCrery doesn’t want his name on the resulting mess. But he still thinks it’s a real honor to work for Trump.
Meanwhile, as with all things Trump, the details remain shady. Earlier plans that were released showed a staircase to nowhere, colliding windows and changing numbers of columns, and still nobody knows exactly how tall the thing is supposed to be.
And of course all of the construction is being done by no-bid contract. Contracts Trump claims he is negotiating personally! He bragged “that the firm excavating the site initially told him the work would cost $3.2 million, but that he pressured the company to accept just $2 million.” And he wants it done by 2029.
You would think as a builder himself the old man would know one can get it for good, fast or cheap, pick two, and it’s only common sense to get more than one estimate for anything, for fuck’s sake. But if there’s anything we know about the guy, it’s never about saving money, which has always been other people’s money anyway. It’s about the joy he gets from his lifelong hobby of screwing over contractors silly enough to think they’re going to get paid.
Here’s hoping the toilets don’t explode, like Michael Cohen’s did.
Anyway, it did not work out for either Queen of Versailles. But Trump has never been a student of history. Can’t wait for the musical version, though!
Bigger, he’ll make it bigger! There’s much we don’t know, but it’s a legendary show! Have you ever seen so many columns in a row? It’s the Donald Trump finale ballroom show! But hey, where did that architect gooooo??
PREVIOUSLY!
[New York Times gift link / Fortune archive link / Washington Post gift link]
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I know he's stupid, but there was a reason why the White House had always been a humble (compared to the palaces of Europe and the Middle East) house instead of a monument to excess and wealth.
The President is supposed to be... or was supposed to be... seen as one of us. Not a king, not a prince, not a sultan, not a ruler. One of us. One American elected to speak and act on our behalf. Sovereignty dwelt with the people of America, not a President and not a king.
The house that we the people lent the one elected to represent us was nice, but not overly ostentatious. It was a house where the family would live and business of the State would be conducted.
He has profaned it. Violated the humble space. Violated the idea of sovereignty lying with the people.
He should be impeached and removed, but our Republic is sick and near death.
I had to stop reading cos these questions were getting to me…
1. 18,000 people? Nobody but nobody on this green earth wants to be hemmed up in a room with 18000 people. What world leader does he imagine is going to agree to basically stadium seating?!
2. Where is the parking for (generously) 9,000 limos plus motorcades etc?
3. How many HVAC units to heat & cool this gold-painted Wal-mart with 18000 bodies in it?