“Nothing will be torn down” Karoline Leavitt said in July: Demolition of the White House East Wing now underway

Trump’s massive project to remodel the White House got underway in earnest on Monday. Construction crews began tearing down portions of the East Wing where a grandiose 90,000 square-foot ballroom will be added to the building.

The president moved forward with the $200-million renovation despite lacking approval for construction from the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal agency that normally oversees such projects. Trump’s appointed NCPC chair, Will Scharf, told the press earlier this month that the “commission does not have jurisdiction… What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build.”

Ballroom construction contradicts statements from Trump and White House

The defacing of the White House has drawn swift rebuke, not least because it goes against what Trump and the White House said about the project this summer.

The demolition work on the East Wing façade and other parts of the building contradict what White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told reporters in July.“Nothing will be torn down,” she said.

The renderings of the ballroom show that it will be an integral part of the main building contrary to what Trump claimed in July. “It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, blasted those who are “pearl clutching” over the demolition work.

“Construction has always been a part of the evolution of the White House,” he wrote on social media with a picture from the Smithsonian Magazine of a major restoration project of the main building that took place in the 1950s to save the structure from collapsing.

“Losers who are quick to criticize need to stop their pearl clutching and understand the building needs to be modernized. Otherwise you’re just living in the past,” he added.

Trump’s ostentatious ballroom

Trump says that he is fulfilling a 150-year-old desire “for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed.” The largest room in the East Wing can accommodate around 200 people.

The White House announcement of the project in July stated that the new ballroom would be able to host events for 650 people. However, more recently, Trump said that it would have a capacity of nearly 1,000.

Images of what the interior will look like upon completion show a vast space bedecked in gold from floor to ceiling with a checkered marble floor. The ballroom is flanked on three sides by massive arched windows and Corinthian columns.

Trump has promised that it $200-million ballroom will come at “zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” He has said that his vanity project “is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”

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