Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, shared a different point of view in an interview with Fox News earlier this week.
“I believe there’s a lot of fake outrage right now because nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own,” Leavitt said.
An official White House fact sheet published Tuesday used similar sensationalized language, accusing “unhinged leftists and their Fake News allies” of “clutching their pearls over President Donald J. Trump’s visionary addition of a grand, privately-funded ballroom to the White House.”
President Donald Trump displays a rendering of the White House ballroom as he meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (left) in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday.
Credit:
Alex Wong/Getty Images
It’s true that every president has put their own mark on the White House, but all of the updates cost at least an order of magnitude less than Trump’s ballroom. Most amounted to little more than redecorating, and none were as destructive as this week’s teardown. Former President Barack Obama repainted the lines of the White House tennis court and installed hoops to turn it into a basketball court. During the George W. Bush administration, the White House press briefing room got a significant makeover. Taxpayers and media companies shared the bill. It’s hard to imagine that happening today.
Former President Gerald Ford had an outdoor swimming pool built near the West Wing. Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy famously spearheaded the redesign of the White House Rose Garden and East Garden, which was later renamed in her honor. The grass in the Rose Garden was paved over with stone tiles earlier this year, and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden was razed this week, the result of which was also visible from space.
In July, Leavitt said the East Wing would be “modernized.” Like Trump, she did not mention plans for demolition, only saying: “The necessary construction will take place.”
Thanks to satellites and commercial space, we now know what necessary construction really meant.
