The entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished "within days," much more bulldozing than initially expected for Donald Trump's new ballroom construction project.
Two Trump administration officials told Sky News' partner NBC that the demolition is a significant expansion of the initial plans announced this summer.
In discussion with reporters in the Oval Office, Donald Trump was asked by Jeff Mason of Reuters to respond to the widespread surprise that the entire East Wing is being torn down. Trump said the wing he described as a separate building “was never thought of as being much; it was a very small building”.
“Rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building,” he continued. “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure.”
Then, pointing at a model of the new ballroom on a table in front of him, and a new structure leading to the ballroom in the location where the East Wing used to be, Trump added: “The way it was shown, it looked like we were touching the White House. We don’t touch the White House.”
“That’s a bridge, a glass bridge going from the White House to the ballroom,” Trump said, of the new structure that will replace the East Wing.
Trump said the result is “going to be probably the finest ballroom ever built” and that the ballroom is “being paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine”.
The New York Times, citing a senior administration official, reported that the ballroom plans will mean the demolition of the entire East Wing. The official also said the demolition should be finished by this weekend.
