The Washington Post’s editorial board has jumped to the defense of President Donald Trump and his $300 million ballroom in its latest op-ed for the newspaper.
Jeff Bezos is the owner of the Post and the CEO of Amazon, one of the tech giants that has contributed funds toward Trump’s ballroom, along with Apple, Google, HP, Microsoft and Meta.
Trump’s new project has prompted widespread criticism this week after crews began demolishing the White House’s historic East Wing, contrary to assurances the president made earlier in the year that the building would not be impacted by the lavish plans.
Now it has been razed to the ground to make way for the ballroom, which will dwarf the 55,000 square-foot White House at 90,000 square feet.
While the newspaper’s board noted that Trump has pursued the project “in the most jarring manner possible,” it also stated the move was “a shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere” in the op-ed published Saturday evening.
The acronym stands for “not in my back yard” and is often used to describe opposition from local residents over development and real estate projects.
The Post’s editorial board agrees with Trump’s team that it is “absurd” tents need to be erected on the South Lawn to accommodate larger state dinners where guests are “forced to use porta-potties.”
Under Trump’s grand plans, the ballroom will seat 999 guests. “The next Democratic president will be happy to have this,” the op-ed read.
The board also dismissed concerns that Trump has bypassed the usual process required for major federal renovations.
“The truth is that this project would not have gotten done, certainly not during his term, if the president had gone through the traditional review process,” the op-ed said, adding that it has become “far too difficult to build anything in America.”
Parroting the defense Trump officials have given this week, the Post’s board closed its case by arguing other presidents also left their mark on the White House.
There were nearly 700 comments underneath the op-ed within an hour of publication, with many pointing out the apparent conflict of interest.
“Why didn’t you mention that Amazon is a funder of the ballroom?” the top comment on the op-ed said.
“Looks like Jeff Bezos is now writing OpEds for the Post!” another joked.
“Did Jeff Bezos write this?” said another reader.
“I honestly don’t recognize this version of The Post,” someone else commented.
Journalists at the paper expressed concern earlier this year that Bezos is currying favor with Trump by softening the Post’s coverage of him. The backlash began when the Amazon founder blocked the editorial board’s endorsement of then-vice president Kamala Harris just days before the 2024 election.
A quarter-million readers canceled their subscriptions after Bezos pulled the Harris endorsement.
Then, staffers were enraged in February after Bezos announced a shocking new direction for the paper’s opinion content that resulted in a top editor resigning.
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” he noted. “We’ll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
It later emerged that Bezos dined with Trump just hours after he unveiled the new mandate, the president revealed in an interview.
