US President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the planned ballroom at the White House. Shalom Baranes’ firm is now responsible for the $300 million construction project, the White House announced on Thursday in Washington. According to media reports, Trump had fallen out with the previous architect, James McCrery, over the size of the extension.
If trump, as he says, is not going use tax-payer money on this project, but rather pay for it himself trough donors. Wouldn’t that mean trump would own part of the white house? He could then collect rent from future president, couldn’t he? Things can get complicated quickly?
In trump’s first term I used the old saying ‘a bull in a China shop’ a time or two to describe how he was knocking down the guardrails of government. I was wrong.
If this was Trump’s level of competence, he would not be President.
He is not going to tear down the facade of the central part of the White House because that would be too unpopular.
Truman (or, really, Congress during the Truman administration) had the White House interior gutted and replaced. I suppose that could happen again, but I doubt it will due to time constraints and issues over where Trump would camp out. If he thinks the White House is a dump, I imagine that Blair House is way beneath him. As for Trump taking over Vance’s place ( 1 Observatory Circle), JD is being careful not to get on Trump’s bad side.
As to whether the ballroom will be done before the 2028 elections, I predict yes. When you do not have to worry about building codes, things speed up. And Trump knows it would look bad if not completed.
At some tantrum-inducing point in the future (pick one or suggest another) either if the Republicans get slammed in the midterms, or when the SCOTUS or some other entity prevents him from running in 2028, or if somehow he does run in 2028 and loses,
Donnie is going to bulldoze and level the entire White House.
He’ll just hire some people and do it, like he did the East Wing. No discussion, no argument, no fuss, no muss, no bother. Because who is going to stop him?
If, God forbid a thousand times, he does run in 2028 and wins, we are so super-fucked that we won’t even care, but if that happens, he will definitely bulldoze the entire White House (probably including the ballroom) and build an entirely new residence named after himself, or else just get Mar-a-Lago moved to D.C. brick by brick.
Well, he runs the government, and he loves self-dealing. So Businessman Trump will make an offer on the land ($1, take it or leave it!), and then president Trump will order the government to counter-offer (We’ll give you 10 billion to take it off our hands, you brilliant genius, you!), and then Businessman Trump will graciously accept. And then set the rent to $5million/day.
Cite: See Trump’s DoJ settling multiple lawsuits against the government in favor of Trump and his toadies; Trump’s Secret Service renting rooms at elevated prices at Trump properties.
I’m not big on Trump=Hitler, but just this one time: Hitler did not tear down the Reich Chancellery. He kept living there while he had a new one built nearby.
He hasn’t the ability to think that far ahead. He’s a Gold Fish really. And being a person that has never been held accountable for his actions, he doesn’t care.
Not holding him accountable is our shame, we will never, ever live it down.
We’ll never live down not enforcing the 15th amendment (African American voting rights) for a century.
Letting Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee get away with it? That was totally lived down, and IMHO rightly so. As Lincoln said, let ‘em up easy.
P.S. I do not know all the details but believe it was a disgrace that a court, in 1878, took away the old Davis plantation from former slaves, giving it back to Davis. The analogy here is that the government should take back Mar-a-Lago. But there is no benefit in locking Trump up.
Re last post, if we are talking about the ballroom, it should have been authorized by Congress (or, better yet, been voted down). But this is just the sort of legal violation SCOTUS has ruled the president is allowed.
More broadly, we will never live down, for a thousand years, that our people twice voted for a strongman when there was a normal small d democratic alternative. Locking up old men won’t change that.
We aren’t going to change the minds of people that vote for a criminal bigoted racist moron. But lock up the criminal bigoted racist moron and perhaps fewer will run for office.
Instead of them ruining a country, let them rob conveniences stores, or whatever their other life goals are.
