President Donald Trump shared a new rendering showing his vision for a new White House ballroom replacing the now-demolished East Wing.
Trump celebrated his $400 million project on social media, posting that it will be the “Greatest of its kind ever built!!”
He wrote on Truth Social Tuesday that the new building “replaces the very small, dilapidated, and rebuilt many times, East Wing, with a magnificent New East Wing.” He also said that the new structure will be taller than the White House’s Executive Mansion.
“If you notice, the North Wall is a replica of the North Facade of the White House,” he wrote in the post.
The new rendering is generally similar to previous drawings of the upcoming ballroom shared by Trump.
The ballroom is projected to be approximately 90,000 square feet, and the attached “New East Wing” complex will include a new office for the First Lady, a new movie theater, and a commercial kitchen.
Trump’s decision to demolish the historic East Wing for a ritzy ballroom has been met with severe criticism, particularly from historic preservationists.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued the Trump administration in December in an effort to force the president to submit his plans for the ballroom to several review bodies, including Congress and the public. The lawsuit asked a court to pause his construction project until those demands are met.
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Construction at the site has not been ordered to stop and Trump’s Department of Justice is moving to try to ensure that doesn’t change.
A DOJ filing on Monday asked a federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to stay any injunction into the construction over alleged “national security” concerns, ABC News reports.
“[A]s the Secret Service attested, halting construction would imperil the President and others who live and work in the White House,” the administration argues in the filing.
The Trump administration said it will also be submitting a second classified statement from the Secret Service to further support its argument that stopping construction at the site will “endanger national security and therefore impair the public interest.”
The filing not only claims that leaving the project incomplete poses a risk to national security, but would also “leave an unsightly excavation site in President’s Park indefinitely,” ABC News reports.
The request was filed just a week and a half after Judge Richard Leon made clear he was skeptical of Trump’s claim that he could build a ballroom at the White House using private donations and without any congressional authorization.
