President Donald Trump on Friday confirmed that he would proceed with building a ballroom on the White House grounds.
‘Just inspected the site of the new Ballroom that will be built, compliments of a man known as Donald J. Trump, at the White House,’ he revealed on Truth Social.
Daily Mail reported in April that Trump’s interest in constructing a White House ballroom dated back to at least 2010, when he approached President Barack Obama‘s adviser David Axelrod with the plan.
A year later, Trump shamed the Obama administration for using a ‘lousy looking tent’ to host state dinners during an interview with Rush Limbaugh.
Cut to February, when Trump was hosting his first large-scale event in the East Room of his second term.
‘This room is packed and – you know I offered to build a ballroom,’ he told attendees.
In his post Friday, the president claimed that a White House ballroom had been in demand for years.
‘For 150 years, Presidents, and many others, have wanted a beautiful Ballroom, but it never got built because nobody previously had any knowledge or experience in doing such things – But I do, like maybe nobody else, and it will go up quickly, and be a wonderful addition, very much in keeping with the magnificent White House itself,’ Trump said.
President Donald Trump on Friday confirmed that he would proceed with building a ballroom on the White House grounds
‘Just inspected the site of the new Ballroom that will be built, compliments of a man known as Donald J. Trump, at the White House,’ he revealed on Truth Social
He pushed that the ballroom project wouldn’t be a distraction from more important presidential duties.
‘There are the “fun” projects I do while thinking about the World Economy, the United States, China, Russia, and lots of other Countries, places, and events,’ Trump said.
‘It will all be good, maybe even GREAT, depending on who is the President of the U.S.A.!’ the president added.
A White House official told the Daily Mail that the ‘expected ballroom location will be generally speaking on the East side of the White House complex.’
‘We will have more to announce shortly after final decisions such as size, blueprint, etc., have been finalized,’ the source added.
A former East Wing aide from a previous administration had told the Daily Mail in April that a ballroom could possibly be erected as part of the already-existing East Wing, where the first lady typically has her offices.
‘I don’t think it’s impossible,’ the official said. ‘I’m not an engineer or a construction expert but it certainly doesn’t seem impossible that you could restructure the East Wing to create a large ballroom to the president’s liking.’
Trump previously added a 20,000 square foot ballroom to his historic Palm Beach property, Mar-a-Lago, and also added a ballroom addition to Washington, D.C.’s Old Post Office, as it was transitioning to his Trump-branded hotel.
Now that property is a Waldorf Astoria.
President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ballroom was a 20,000-square-foot addition to the historic property that he purchased in 1985
The Obamas erected a tent for a state dinner for the first time in White House history in 2009. Donald Trump, then a real estate developer, thought it was tacky and offered to build something better according to Obama adviser David Axelrod
The most likely location for a Trump ballroom would be the East Wing. In the past, parts of the South Lawn have been used for tents to house state dinners in first the Obama administration and later by President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden used what appeared to be the same tent as President Barack Obama to host his 2023 state dinner with Australia. Biden repositioned it in an area of the South Lawn that would better accommodate Trump’s ballroom vision
The Truth Social post indicated the president would personally pick up the cost.
He reportedly also told Axelrod he would pick up the tab, according to Trump’s telling.
But in a 2016 interview with Time magazine, after candidate Trump had again brought up the ballroom on the even of the Iowa caucuses, Axelrod remembered the conversation differently.
‘I don’t recall him saying he would pay for it,’ the Obama adviser said.
Trump made the ballroom announcement after spending the day behind closed doors, on the heels of his blockbuster public feud with former DOGE leader Elon Musk.
