Trump’s proposed new State Ballroom is not an addition to the White House — it’s a takeover

Photo: AP Images

IT’S

not every day the White House gets a facelift, and when it does, it’s usually a paint job, a portico power wash, or maybe a new mezuzah hammered in by a senior enough (and Jewish enough) White House official.

This time, however, the Executive Mansion is going big. As in, a chamber large enough to host an Abraham Accords signing ceremony with the leaders of two dozen Muslim countries, their honor guards, and a surprise flyover by the Israeli Air Force. The addition of a brand-new ballroom is the first major structural expansion to the Executive Mansion since Harry Truman put in a second floor and tried not to fall through the ceiling.

“President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail,” said White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, adding that the president and his administration “are fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House while building a beautiful ballroom that can be enjoyed by future administrations and generations of Americans to come.”

The solution was born out of long-simmering frustration at the White House, which, despite its grandeur, is woefully ill-equipped to host major functions with the kind of pomp befitting world leaders. Until now, state dinners and high-profile summits have often been relegated to a giant, uninviting tent pitched roughly 100 yards from the Executive Mansion.

The White House insists the entire project will be funded privately. Including, they note, by President Trump himself. The projected price tag is said to be $200 million, or roughly the new annual budget of the Department of Education.

Construction for this cavernous, gold-adjacent East Wing addition is scheduled to start in September and is expected to be completed well before the end of Trump’s second term (worst-case scenario: just in time for the beginning of his third). Over the past few weeks, POTUS has meetings to discuss design features and planning with members of the White House Staff, the National Park Service, the White House Military Office, and the Secret Service.

According to preliminary plans, the new White House ballroom will be constructed by first upgrading the existing East Wing, which currently houses offices and the First Lady’s working space, and then extending it outward into the eastern edge of the South Lawn, thereby creating a grand, elongated structure that matches the classic façade and blends into the landscape while dramatically expanding the White House’s footprint.

But once we get to the size, something doesn’t quite add up. According to the White House’s website: “The State Ballroom,” which it describes as “approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space” will have “a seated capacity of 650 people.” First of all, 90,000 square feet is nearly double the size of the White House itself, which is estimated at a humble 55,000 square feet. Meaning, if these figures hold, the ballroom isn’t an addition, it’s a takeover. At this point, it might be more efficient to rename the Executive Mansion the “Guest House Adjacent to the State Ballroom.”

Now, for the benefit of those without access to a calculator, this means each guest will enjoy 138 square feet of personal space. That’s big enough for each guest to have his or her own personal White House Press Briefing Room.

Meanwhile, your humble White House Correspondent remains stationed in a room that is built atop a literal swimming pool. No, not metaphorically. The White House Press Briefing Room was once Franklin D. Roosevelt’s private indoor pool, installed in 1933, so that he could swim away polio pains without the public noticing.

Fast-forward a few decades and quite a few renovations, and the erstwhile swimming pool now serves as the White House Briefing Room, with a posted legal occupancy of 68. I’ve personally counted 150 souls crammed in there, shoulder to shoulder, tripod to tripod, like sardines in a Capitol cloakroom during an insurrection.

Let’s consider some of the other options for press events. The South Court Auditorium, located inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB), was a Biden favorite for press conferences. The room could comfortably seat about 150, has proper lighting, and the side facing the cameras is backdropped by a state-of-the-art LED wall that can assume any background.

Then there’s the East Room, stately and chandeliered, with seating for 250 and the acoustics of a state funeral. Anything beyond that and it’s outdoor time, weather permitting. Usually this means the Rose Garden, which can handle a few hundred. And occasionally the South Lawn, a vast green expanse that can technically host thousands, assuming the event isn’t a climate summit in August.

The White House doesn’t have a room big enough to comfortably accommodate the press it keeps attracting, and a room that seats 650 would be as perfect for a Trump-addicted press corps as it would be for the president who thrives on their attention.

Imagine what Trump could do with a space that, on paper, is 36 times the size of the White House’s current largest room. Would it be used for the unveiling of the Trump-Putin Friendship Mural? Is it for a private ping-pong summit with Kim Jong-un? Perhaps it’ll host the largest gathering of world leaders from every nation to celebrate world peace?

Whatever the occasion, I imagine there’d be plenty of space for a press section. In fact, based on the White House renderings, this grand ballroom looks very similar to the one at Mar-a-Lago that Trump uses for large press gatherings. Besides, what would be the point of hosting an event worthy of a 90,000-square-foot room of glitz and pizzazz if they can’t flaunt it before media?

Look. Presidents come and go. Policies rise and fall. But grand ballrooms? Grand ballrooms are forever. And this ballroom, like Trump’s hair and his signed Sharpie map of Hurricane Dorian, may outlast us all.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1073)