It's even worse than that, this isn't the original "White House" (to the extent such a thing exists). It's an office extension built in the 1940s in part to cover an underground bomb shelter.
As someone who really doesn't support Trump, I have sort of mixed feelings on this ballroom thing. I try to give everyone and everything the benefit of the doubt, so follow me here, if you will.
There are several ways to look at the ballroom thing, the first is whether or not he's literally legally allowed to do it, I haven't read too deeply on this, but I heard something to the effect of him giving the contract to a buddy of his, and that the executive doesn't have the legal authority to do this, but I really don't know, so I need not speak on it.
The second is whether we should be investing in vanity projects like this given that we're nearto being in a recession. Even being privately funded, 300 million dollars for a ballroom is pretty eye-watering, imagine if instead of blowing it on a fuck off ballroom, they took that and gave it to charity or put it in a fund to pay off people's medical bills, just a thought.
The third is whether or not it's right to demolish part of the White House to build something else, given that it's not just a government building, but also a national monument in and of itself. This is where I am personally most conflicted. I don't really agree with the notion that we aren't allowed to revise something just because it has historical value, but at the same time, say some president wanted to make a gaudy decision like painting the White house, or replacing the rustic historical interior decorating with post-modernist furniture, that would really be bastardizing and ruining the building.
I don't really think it's wrong necessarily that they are building a ballroom, so much as it's almost Ancien Régime levels of ignorance to build a new, lavish ballroom in the symbolic representation of the federal government while the average American is in a pretty shit place economically. If we were in better times, it'd probably be celebrated.
Now, if Trump pulls an Ol' Hickory and invites thousands of peasants into the ballroom after it's finished, and lets them trash the place and consume thousands of pounds of whiskey and cheese, I might unironically have a different opinion of the man afterwards.
