This Looks Like Sh*t

I used to think the White House was big enough. Not “big” like Texas or a suburban Cheesecake Factory, but big enough for the modest goal of running a country. You have the Oval Office, the Lincoln Bedroom, a press room for pretending you have answers—why mess with that? But Donald Trump apparently woke up one morning, glanced at 245 years of democratic tradition, and said, “What this democracy needs is an event space.”

They’re calling it a ballroom, but that’s like calling a cruise ship a canoe. Ninety thousand square feet—nearly twice the size of the White House itself—slapped onto the East Wing like an afterthought from a man who thinks restraint is a character flaw. It’s a $200 million “privately funded” project, which is to say: funded by a mystery bag of money we’re all pretending not to see.

I’m not sure how this is legal. Shouldn’t Congress have to approve “making the White House unrecognizable”? If the president wanted to replace the Statue of Liberty with a Chick-fil-A, we’d at least have hearings, right? But apparently, as long as you call it “private money,” you can bolt a luxury conference center to the side of the People’s House and no one can stop you.