The president’s demolition of the East Wing to make way for a flashy gold ballroom worth $300 million has drawn widespread criticism and is widely seen as an erosion of history.
But the Washington Post, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, doesn’t see it that way.
In a piece published Saturday titled “In defense of the White House ballroom,” the editorial board came out swinging against critics of Trump’s teardown. Amazon is one of several private corporations funding the massive 90,000-square-foot space.
The demolition began on Monday, and the scale of destruction is now even visible from space. Trump’s project directly contradicts a vow he made this summer to leave the White House as it is during construction of his pet project.
According to the Post’s editorial board, the image of the now-ruined White House is seen by Trump loyalists as “what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.”
The board referred to it as a “reasonable idea” being pursued in the “most jarring way possible.”
Trump has been slammed for bypassing the standard approval process for White House renovations. But the board dismissed those criticisms, arguing that had the president played by the rules, the project would never be completed by the end of his term.
“The blueprints would have faced death by a thousand papercuts,” the board wrote.
They concluded their argument by asserting that the White House should be a vision of the future, not a monument of the past.
“Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness,” the editorial reads. “Strong leaders reject calcification.”
The opinion section at the Post recently took a sharp right turn by hiring three new conservative writers after losing high-profile liberal columnists.
The staffing changes come amid fallout from Bezos’ February directive that the opinion section focus on “personal liberties and free markets,” an apparent attempt to appease President Donald Trump after his return to the White House.
