Donald Trump has vowed to build a $100 million ballroom in the White House – the first major renovation to the presidential mansion in over 70 years.
Trump said he is good at building party rooms – the glitzy Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom takes pride of place at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.
Countering any suggestion that a ballroom would be an indulgence while Elon Musk’s DOGE team is stripping federal budgets, Trump said he would pick up the tab for the ambitious project himself.
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Speaking at a press conference in the East Room, he claimed he’d appealed to Joe Biden to allow him to glam up the White House but never heard anything back.
“I was going to build a beautiful, beautiful ballroom like I’ve done before,” he said. “It would cost $100 million.
“I told them again and again. They didn’t know what to do. They had no idea,” he added. “We could use one at the White House. We will see if Trump will approve it,” he joked.
The last major renovation work at the White House was under President Harry S. Truman between 1948 and 1952 during the “Truman Reconstruction” when the interior of the building was ripped out and replaced. Only the exterior walls remained intact.
It’s not the first time Trump has suggested the idea. He also said he’d build a ballroom while on the campaign trail in 2016 and complained that he’d offered to build it himself to the Obama administration but, again, he never heard back.
“Every time the top people come over from China, they put up a tent at the White House,” he said at a rally in Iowa. “We’ll have a ballroom at the White House.”
