👠She's Crafty and She's Just My Type💍

The Ballroom Question: What They're NOT Telling You

Okay, so let me get this straight.

In July, the price was $200 million. By October, it's $300 million. That's a 50% increase. For construction that hasn't even been completed yet. "With any construction project, there are changes," they say. Changes. Right.

And the size? Originally 650 seated guests. Now 999. That's oddly specific, isn't it? Why not 1,000? What happens at number 1,000? What regulatory threshold are they dancing just under?

But here's what really caught my attention: In July, Trump explicitly said it, "won't interfere with the current building. It'll be near it, but not touching it." Direct quote. Yet by October, the entire East Wing is demolished. Gone. Rubble. "In order to do it properly we had to take down the existing structure," he now says.

So... it IS touching it. It IS interfering. The thing he said wouldn't happen is happening.

Let's talk about square footage for a moment. The official announcement says, "approximately 90,000 total square feet." That's vague, right? Some analysts looking at the renderings think this might be the total floor area of the new East Wing, with the actual ballroom being closer to 25,000 square feet. But 90,000 is what they keep emphasizing. That's nearly double the size of the entire White House itself. 

For context, the main White House structure is about 55,000 square feet. So this addition, this ballroom, this thing that definitely won't touch the existing building... will be almost twice as large as the building it definitely won't touch, like peas and mashed potatoes on fine porcelain.

And it's all happening without approval from the National Capital Planning Commission—you know, the agency that's supposed to review federal development projects in D.C. Every president since 1952 has voluntarily submitted their plans. Every one. Until now. "We're just going to start building," apparently.

The Committee for the Preservation of the White House? Their recommendations are non-binding. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966? The White House is exempt. So there's literally no mechanism to stop this except... public opinion? Cute.

Now let's talk about what's going IN there. The renderings show something that looks suspiciously like Mar-a-Lago. Gilded. Chandeliers. Ornate columns. And—this is interesting—bulletproof glass walls. Why does a ballroom need bulletproof glass? For dancing? For state dinners? Or for something that needs to be observed from the outside while remaining completely secure from the inside?

And there's the glass bridge connecting it to the main building. Not a hallway. Not an enclosed walkway. A glass bridge. Transparent. Visible. Almost like you'd want people to see who's going back and forth.

The Treasury Department—which has a direct view of the construction—banned employees from sharing photos. Think about that. Federal employees who work across the street can't take pictures of construction happening at the White House. In 2025. When everyone has a camera in their pocket. What exactly would those photos show that we're not supposed to see?

Here's another fun detail: Back in 2010, when Trump was still a private citizen, he talked to Obama's senior advisor David Axelrod about building a ballroom. That's 15 years of thinking about this specific project. Fifteen years. This isn't a sudden vanity project. This is something he's been planning since before he was president the first time.

The donor list is... interesting. Amazon. Apple. Alphabet. Microsoft. Meta. Palantir. Comcast. All the major tech companies, basically. All the companies currently dealing with AI regulation, antitrust concerns, and government contracts. And they're all happily funding this... ballroom. How generous. How civic-minded.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just a $300 million entertaining space that keeps getting bigger and more expensive, built without proper oversight, with bulletproof walls and mysterious glass bridges, funded by every tech giant that needs government favor, planned for 15 years, expanding beyond its original promises, in a post-truth America where what was said three months ago doesn't matter anymore.

I'm sure it's just for dancing.

I'm sure it's fine.

But if you're looking for reliable information—like I am—here's what's reliable: The numbers keep changing. The promises keep breaking. The oversight keeps disappearing. And the questions keep multiplying faster than the square footage.

Maybe it really is just a ballroom.

Or maybe, in a world where words don't mean what they meant and truth is just another no-bid project with changes over time... maybe we should ask why they need 90,000 square feet of bulletproof glass to host dinner parties?

Just asking questions. That's still allowed, right?

For now.