Tennessee Democrat suggests tearing down Trump ballroom if GOP loses in 2028
By: Ashleigh Fields (The Hill)
Democrats could fund restoration of an East Wing by selling fits of "Trump trash". Who wouldn't pay $9.99 to own a piece of history associated with Trump's balls?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said President Trump's White House ballroom should be torn down if Democrats regain the Oval Office in 2028.
"I don't think it would be a bad idea to tear it down," Cohen told NBC News in an interview published Friday.
"It's this gigantic blob there that's Donald Trump," he added.
Trump has come under criticism from a number of Democrats for tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build a new ballroom. The president has said the new construction is necessary, so future presidents have a placed for large ceremonial dinners that are now held in tents on the White House lawn.
An October survey published by YouGov found that 54 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat disapprove of the move lauded by the Trump administration.
But despite the criticism, the president says the project will move ahead at full speed.
"The East Wing was a beautiful, little, tiny structure that was built many years ago that was renovated and expanded and disbanded and columns ripped out — and it had nothing to do with the original building," Trump said during a Monday interview with Fox News's Laura Ingraham.
"It was a poor, sad sight, and I could have built the ballroom around it, but it would not have been — we're building one of the greatest ballrooms in the world," Trump said.
The project is expected to cost $300 million and is set to expand the White House's hosting capacity with construction efforts being fueled by private donors.
Several Democrats have raised concerns about the ethics of Trump using private donors for the construction of the ballroom.
"These circumstances risk blatant corruption as these companies and their stakeholders seek to position themselves in the government's good graces," Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Angela Alsobrooks (Md.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Jon Ossoff (Ga.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Jack Reed (R.I.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) wrote in a letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
They demanded a full list of corporations and individuals funding the project.
"This is a space that's owned by the people and that serves the people," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told NBC regarding the ballroom.
"So, it should be used opposite of what Trump has in mind, which is for the American aristocracy and plutocracy to gather."
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said Americans should have a say in what happens to the ballroom after the president leaves office.
"We need a White House that is not for the tech billionaires, but for forgotten Americans," he told NBC.
"In that spirit, we should ask Americans — in rural communities, urban centers and hollowed-out factory towns — for their ideas of what to do with the space," Khanna added.
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Avoid disappointment and future regret. Act now, before it's too late.
(Democrats could include in a free, free, free blue pill to make the deal more attractive.)
If it's not wrong for someone in power to build a monument to himself its not wrong to tear it down once he is gone.
Tearing it down would be to costly, but it should be converted to something that is actually needed and would be used.
If Trump wants his name on something we can dedicate the southeast wing to his name. The wing with the public bathrooms.
I think they would find enough citizens to come in and tear it down for free.
You are correct tearing it down would be cheap, it's building something to replace it with that would be costly. Plus hauling away all that Home Depot fake gold flourishes costs money as well.
How about a Cracker Barrel or McDonalds?
"The East Wing was a beautiful, little, tiny structure that was built many years ago that was renovated and expanded and disbanded and columns ripped out — and it had nothing to do with the original building,"
What good was it doing and being used for before? Kinda dumb to tear it down and used taxpayer money to replace the ballroom/state dining room with....what?
The East Wing was a National Monument. Jackie Kennedy's garden was a national monument. Andrew Jackson's magnolia tree was a national monument.
Trump's demolition of these national monuments is much, much worse than knocking down Confederate statues. Restoring the statue of Gen. Albert Pike while destroying the national monument of the East Wing is nothing more than childish spite by Trump.
If Trump's construction overshadows the White House then it must be removed. There won't be any options. That's not spite, that's preservation of the White House.
Lol. Wanton waste of hundreds of millions of dollars out of spite...
Democratic governance in a nutshell.
Yes, that is what building a 90,000 sq ft gaudy ballroom on White House grounds is. Perhaps we won't need to tear it down, we'll just turn it into a museum where we put on display all the evidence of Trumps attempted insurrection and all of his criminal acts as we expose Trump and his feckless administration and the vile piece of shit white supremacists and Christo-fascists supporting his attempt to destroy our constitutional Republic.
You're gonna need a bigger building.
Lol. Yes, keep pretending that if a democrat POTUS pulled this shit that Republicans would never stoop to such a low.
You are of course talking about building this ballroom right? Ok to waste money to build it, but it's waste to tear it down?
Partisan much?
How about the new POTUS leave the structure but turn it onto a smaller ballroom and offices for the FLOTUS and her staff?
An entire wing of the White House cannot be turned into an ego-driven abomination of a monument to a criminal tyrant. It just can't be.
Temporarily gilding the Oval Office like a Middle Eastern potentate is bad enough. But this? A permanent structure? Hell no.
Congress needs to stop the new construction altogether, and then prepare a case for when the Justice Department is ethical, independent, and pro-America again, to prosecute the disgusting son of a bitch for the intentional destruction of the East Wing. It is not his property to do with as he pleases.
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So this site is so partisan now it's considered a taunt to think democrat politicians are ignorant for wanting to do stupid fucking things? to quote Tig....Pathetic.
The meta scrapes by only to point out that it is the TEA Party who cheers tearing down a national monument to erect a room for Trump's balls.
Entertaining Saudi Princes in golden palaces is not America First. Here in the heartland no one cares if Trump can impress Vladimir Putin with tasteless gold decorations. People in the heartland do not want an American Versailles.
Trump's gold decorations in the Oval Office is not draining the swamp.
those silly pieces all over the oval office aren't even real gold....it's spray painted plastic
Yes, they're plaster and plastic. But they're probably covered with gold leaf. There might be $30 worth of gold on the fireplace that is Trump's favorite backdrop. Putting gold leaf on those decorations could actually cost less than spray paint.
Real gold leafed decorations do not cost very much. But people tend not to use them because they look tacky.