{"id":2107244,"date":"2025-10-22T02:21:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T02:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2107244"},"modified":"2025-10-22T02:21:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T02:21:16","slug":"trump-defends-200m-privately-funded-white-house-ballroom-with-historic-examples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/trump-defends-200m-privately-funded-white-house-ballroom-with-historic-examples\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump defends $200M privately funded White House ballroom with historic examples"},"content":{"rendered":"

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NEW<\/span>You can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

President Donald Trump<\/a>‘s privately funded $200 million White House ballroom is the latest “bold, necessary addition” to the executive residence, officials said, describing the East Wing construction as a continuation of presidential upgrades dating back more than a century.<\/p>\n

Photos of the East Wing fa\u00e7ade being demolished went viral Monday, prompting criticism online and a swift rebuttal from the White House, which wrote that<\/a> “unhinged leftists and their Fake News allies are clutching their pearls over President Donald J. Trump\u2019s visionary addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom \u2026 a bold, necessary addition that echoes the storied history of improvements and additions from commanders-in-chief to keep the executive residence a beacon of American excellence.”<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt<\/a> echoed the president’s message Tuesday on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” saying, “I believe there\u2019s a lot of fake outrage right now.”<\/p>\n

“Nearly every single president who\u2019s lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own,” Leavitt added. “In fact, presidents for decades \u2014 in modern times \u2014 have joked about how they wished they had a larger event space here at the White House, something that could hold hundreds more people than the current East Room and State Dining Room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“President Obama even complained that during his tenure, he had to hold a state dinner on the South Lawn and rent a very expensive tent.<\/p>\n

HILLARY CLINTON FIRES UP VOTERS AGAINST TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM CONSTRUCTION: ‘NOT HIS HOUSE”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Work continues on the demolition of a part of the East Wing of the White House, Tuesday, before construction of a new ballroom.<\/span> (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In an article shared Tuesday<\/a>, the administration listed more than a dozen examples of leaders “renovating, expanding and modernizing” the property to “meet the needs of the present day,” from Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s West Wing in 1902 to Barack Obama\u2019s<\/a> Kitchen Garden in 2009.<\/p>\n

Trump first confirmed the ballroom project Monday on Truth Social, writing: “I am pleased to announce that ground has been broken \u2026 to build the new, big, beautiful White House<\/a> Ballroom. Completely separate from the White House itself, the East Wing is being fully modernized \u2026 and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!”<\/p>\n

“For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom \u2026 I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway \u2014 with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” he continued, crediting “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and yours truly” for funding the build. “This Ballroom will be happily used for Generations to come!”<\/p>\n

The White House’s Rapid Response 47 account also shared a detailed thread on X Tuesday showing how past presidents “have been renovating, expanding, and modernizing the White House to meet the needs of the current day.”<\/p>\n

TRUMP BREAKS GROUND ON MASSIVE WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM PROJECT WITH PRIVATE FUNDING FROM ‘PATRIOTS’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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This photo provided by the U.S. Library of Congress shows a crowd outside the White House on the wedding day of Jessie Woodrow Wilson, daughter of President Wilson who married Francis Bowes Sayre, in a White House ceremony in Washington, Nov. 25, 1913.<\/span> (U.S. Library of Congress via AP)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Trump elaborated Tuesday, calling the federal government “this big for nothing.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re building a world-class ballroom,” he said. “You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back here. That\u2019s music to my ears. People don\u2019t like it. I love it. When I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. In this case, a lack of money, because I\u2019m paying for it.”<\/p>\n

Trump also noted that the East Room, currently the largest indoor event space, is little more than “a cocktail area” that holds about 88 people.<\/p>\n

During a Diwali event at the White House Tuesday night, Trump again referenced the project and his decision not to accept a salary, quipping that “they probably owe me a lot of money” for everything he\u2019s put into the building.<\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump speaks during a lunch with Republican senators in the Rose Garden of the White House, Tuesday.<\/span> (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“If I get money from our country, I\u2019ll do something nice with it. Like give it to charity, or give it to the White House,” he said. “We restore the White House, and we\u2019re doing a great job. The ballroom is under construction. They\u2019ve been trying to get it for 150 years.”<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The ballroom project is the latest in Trump’s improvements to the property, which include an overhaul of the Rose Garden and the Palm Room.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n

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Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.foxnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! President Donald Trump‘s privately funded $200 million White House ballroom is the latest “bold, necessary addition” to the executive residence, officials said, describing the East Wing construction as a continuation of presidential upgrades dating back more than a century. Photos of the East Wing fa\u00e7ade being demolished […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2107245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[22389,308491,22893],"class_list":["post-2107244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-donald-trump","tag-washington-dc","tag-white-house"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Trump-defends-200M-privately-funded-White-House-ballroom-with-historic.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2107244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2107246,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107244\/revisions\/2107246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2107245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2107244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2107244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2107244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}