Construction Begins On Big, Beautiful Ballroom, The Party Place For Rich People Trump Can’t Stop Talking About

In today’s episode of This Is Fine. It’s Not Like The Government Is Shut Down Or Anything, our esteemed commander in chief is taking on the important tasks to save America economically and keep us safe from all that threatens us both internally and externally.

Nah, I’m messing with you — Trump is remodeling the White House again.

According to the Washington Post, construction crews have started demolishing part of the East Wing of the White House to make way for President Donald Trump’s big, beautiful ballroom, which he’s been yapping about to anyone who will listen, including a reporter who asked him how he was holding up after the killing of Charlie Kirk.

Earlier this year, Trump erased White House history by paving over the famous Rose Garden created during the administration of John F. Kennedy, so he could host his events in the space, which he calls the “Rose Garden Club,” despite having gotten rid of all the roses. (He is so weird. So, so weird.)

Now, Trump is spending an estimated $250 million to gift himself with a new White House ballroom, presumably, so he has a really elegant space where he can dance like this:

Whatever, y’all know you can’t wait to watch that man cut the smoothest of rugs in that ballroom.

Seriously, though, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that, during a time of economic uncertainty for most American citizens — when everyone is worried about the price of groceries and gas — our commander-in-tariff-tantrums is redesigning the White House so he can have nice spaces to host parties for rich people who don’t need to check their bank account balances before they decide which bills get paid on time in any given month. He and his staffers are even referring to the ballroom as the “People’s House,” as if the average American known as “the people” will ever be invited.

From Axios:

Representatives from Google, Amazon, Palantir Technologies, Lockheed Martin and more — many with lucrative contracts or pending business with the government — attended the East Room dinner.

The guest list included wealthy Trump backers like Blackstone co-founder Stephen A. Schwarzman and oil executive Harold G. Hamm, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed to Axios by a White House official.

“We have a lot of legends in the room tonight,” Trump told the crowd, “and that’s why we’re here: To celebrate you, because you gave … tremendous amounts of money to see a ballroom built for the first time at the White House.”

Trump has given the White House a Mar-a-Lago-style makeover since his return to the Pennsylvania Ave. residence. He paved the Rose Garden lawn, gilded the Oval Office and has promised more to come.

Last month, the Associated Press characterized Trump’s “Rose Garden Club” as “a lavish new hangout for political allies and business elites,” and, on Tuesday, he’s using it to host a lunch for Senate Republicans, who — and I’m just going to go ahead and switch to all caps here — SHOULD BE PREOCCUPIED WITH WORKING WITH DEMOCRATS TO END THE SHUTDOWN OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT!!!

It’s no wonder the White House has ordered staffers and workers to refrain from sharing photos of the White House ballroom’s construction on social media. Some people might get the idea that something unethical is going down at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Don Fox, former acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, told Axios these events have a “potential coercive effect on people to donate,” noting, “one of the president’s favorite words is retribution.”

Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law professor, shared similar sentiments, saying Trump is fostering “a favorable atmosphere of gratitude and reciprocity,” and that “there’s personal solicitation and personal response that just increases the likelihood that there’ll be the give and take.”

“All of this money that they’re giving for something that’s important to the president could influence his decision-making, and he could be thinking about that instead of thinking about what’s best for the American people,”  said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Of course, the White House appears to be defending the president’s extravagance by tossing around platitudes and political slogans, and emphasizing that taxpayers aren’t being made to foot the bill for this ballroom.

Trump “is working 24/7 to Make America Great Again, including his historic beautification of the White House, at no taxpayer expense,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.

According to Al Jazeera, Trump also claimed on social media that the project will be privately funded, a promise that should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

“For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc. I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway — with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” Trump posted, crediting himself as the “first president” to turn a room into a ballroom, as if presidents haven’t been making changes to the White House for more than a century.

It’s almost as if Trump’s entire presidential career is one big vanity project.

The people deserve better.

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