President Donald Trump adores the sound of the ongoing renovations at the White House, but the same cannot be said for first lady Melania Trump, the president told reporters on Friday.
“It makes me happy,” he said of hearing the project take shape. “My wife doesn’t love it,” he added.
The Independent has contacted the first lady’s office for comment.
Heavy machinery has been active on the White House grounds since October, when the president unilaterally began construction on his planned $400 million ballroom complex.
That’s music to the former real estate developer’s ears.
“I love the sound of concrete,” Trump added on Friday. “I love the sound of pile drivers.”
To build the 22,000-square-foot ballroom, the president demolished the East Wing, the site of the first lady’s offices.
“She loved her little tiny office,” the president told Fox News in November, though he added that Melania thinks the new designs for the East Wing are “great.”
Privately, the first lady has reportedly sought to distance herself from the renovation.
She has expressed concern about the East Wing teardown and has told associates it wasn’t her project, The Wall Street Journal reported last year, citing unnamed administration officials.
The privately-funded ballroom build-out has generated widespread criticism from architects, preservation groups and members of the public, who sent in thousands of negative comments before a National Capital Planning Commission meeting about the project earlier this month.
The commission, chaired by a Trump ally, has a final vote on the ballroom project scheduled for April 2.
The project continues to face legal scrutiny.
While hearing a lawsuit from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a federal judge this week accused the administration of offering “shifting” justifications for what gave it the authority to begin the renovation project without consulting Congress or federal planning bodies.
The Justice Department claims the president already has authority under federal law to make improvements and alterations at the White House, reasoning that Washington, D.C., federal Judge Richard Leon appeared to doubt.
Calling the new compound a mere alteration of the White House “takes some brazen interpretation of the laws of vocabulary,” he reportedly said.
The ballroom project could also face legal challenges due to the officials that Trump has appointed to the National Capital Planning Commission, who lack the required experience in city or regional planning to serve on the body, according to some watchdog groups.
“Those appointments were not just a crude political power play,” Jon Golinger of the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen told commissioners at a meeting earlier this month. “They were unlawful, and they destroy the credibility of the vote on this project if those individuals vote for it.”
As the fate of the East Wing hangs in the balance, Trump allies are reportedly pushing to alter other elements of the White House design.
Rodney Mims Cook Jr., a Trump appointee who chairs the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which reviews public projects in the capital, told The Washington Post he is proposing to replace the columns on the north facade of the White House.
“Corinthian is the highest order [of column], and that’s what our other two branches of government have,” he told the paper.
“Why the White House didn’t originally use them, at least on the north front, which is considered the front door, is beyond me,” he added, noting he hadn’t discussed the idea yet with the president.
In a rare check on the administration’s ever-expanding construction agenda, the Commission of Fine Arts recently delayed a vote on a new screening center development for White House visitors, reportedly as commissioners sought substantial design changes because the proposal called for too large of a building.
