Donald Trump’s wrecking ball hits his own movement

When the demolition crews arrived Monday at the White House, there had been no forewarning. Excavators were spotted razing the East Wing late that afternoon, as much of the nation was still abuzz about President Donald Trump’s reaction to the historic “No Kings” protests. 

The rapid pace of transformation and scale of the demolition surprised everyone. Just a few days before, as Trump hosted some of the richest people in America at the White House to secure funding for his project to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, there was no mention of a timeline. And until the bulldozers and backhoes showed up this week, the president had explicitly denied the White House’s structure would be affected. 

The ballroom, he reassured the public when he announced the project in July, “won’t interfere with the current building.” It was only on Wednesday, a full two days after the demolition had started, that the administration admitted that the plan was to raze the entire East Wing.

If there were any doubt left, the painful images of the White House literally being torn down have made it crystal clear: The president is not the least concerned about the pretense of propriety. But even though Trump is increasingly emboldened, the first significant renovation to the people’s house in decades, which has left behind nothing but twisted piles of rubble, is raising questions from his MAGA base. These suggest a sense of creeping doubt may be starting to set in. 

Trump “needs to tell the public now what he is doing with the East Wing of the White House. And then tell the public why he didn’t tell them before he started doing it,” frequent Fox News contributor and conservative pundit Byron York posted on X. 

“Most controversies are complicated,” observed Howard Kurtz, the longtime Fox News columnist and media critic. “Blowing up the East Wing, after saying it would remain intact, has touched a nerve, destroying a piece of history.” 

A Washington Post headline Thursday read: “The East Wing is gone, and Trump turns to damage control.” 

The administration has taken steps to keep details of the demolition from the public, reportedly ordering employees not to share photos and blocking access to journalists.

While many Republicans in Congress are reflexively cheering Trump’s move, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, admitted that the optics of fancy renovations amidst a government shutdown are “bad.”

“There’s a conflict in just the reality that people are seeing,” Murkowski told reporters Thursday. “Federal funding for nursing moms, WIC benefits, may not be available after the first of November. And then you have a White House where they’re expanding a massive ballroom.”

While the White House is technically owned by the American people, it is managed by the National Park Service. But the administration has not sought approval for Trump’s plan from the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees major renovations of federal buildings in Washington, claiming that the commission has oversight over construction, but not demolition. In any case, construction plans are likely to be rubber-stamped, even as Trump has suddenly scaled the ballroom’s planned capacity from 600 up to 999, because the commission was quietly stacked with Trump loyalists days before the ballroom plans were unveiled in July. Earlier this year, the president paved over the White House’s 112-year-old Rose Garden. 

“We’re building a ballroom,” Trump said on Monday. They’ve wanted a ballroom for 150 years, and I’m giving that honor to this wonderful place.” But less than half of Republicans polled, 45%, favor Trump’s redesign of the East Wing. The cost of the president’s project, meanwhile, has skyrocketed to $300 million, up threefold from projections in February, when he first declared during a signing ceremony that he’d like to build it for $100 million.

Trump has waved away concerns by noting that taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for the renovations, but that’s only sparked more questions. A list released by the White House on Thursday showed that several private donors to the project head major corporations that are awaiting merger approval from the administration. Others, like YouTube, are forking over the money to conclude legal battles with the president. Comcast, the parent company of NBC News, is a listed donor. Lockheed Martin has reportedly pledged more than $10 million for the ballroom’s construction, a figure that roughly equals the defense contractor’s entire 2024 lobbying budget. The White House has said contributing companies, which are being asked to donate a lump sum or pay in up to three installments by 2027, are eligible for “recognition associated with the White House Ballroom.”

Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

While Trump tends to his ballroom, support for his economic agenda, including a bailout of Argentina, is cratering. As CNN’s Harry Enten noted, Trump’s approval rating is now “the lowest for any president ever at this point in either a presidency or for a second term.”

GOP Sens. Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, who represent Nebraska, one of the nation’s top beef producers, pushed back this week on Trump’s plans to import beef from Argentina. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., one of Trump’s fiercest supporters, called the president’s move “probably one of the grossest things I’ve ever seen.” Speaking to Tucker Carlson this week, Greene warned Republicans that “many Americans that voted for Republicans, gave us the House majority, gave us the Senate majority and put our favorite president back into office, Donald Trump, they’re mad. And they’re they are really, really mad they’re they’re stepping back.” 

Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren asked on X: Why the actual F**K would we buy Argentinian beef? Our AMERICAN ranchers are getting crushed already by cheap shit foreign beef imports. The meat packers are already under cutting our AMERICAN producers as it is. This is an OUTRAGE. “ Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., called on Trump to reconsider his plan. “It’s created a lot of uncertainty in that market. So I’m hoping that the White House has gotten the message.”

Republicans are also feeling the heat this week on the shutdown. A new Reuters poll found that 50% blamed Trump and the GOP. “This shutdown strategy is old and Republicans need to have new tactics,” Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, warned her fellow Republicans. “I would actually recommend that maybe we start staying in town,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, arguing, “it just forces us to come together and really start reckoning with the shutdown.” 

Democrats’ demand to extend tax credits for health insurance exchanges seems to have divided Republicans. On Tuesday, 13 House Republicans wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pleading for a compromise fix to the tax credits for health insurance premiums, which are expected to skyrocket by 30% according to an exclusive report by the Washington Post.

Beyond the shutdown and surprise renovations, Trump’s supporters are even giving him grief for another new scandalous pardon. 

On Thursday, Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to money laundering. Under Zhao’s leadership, Binance struck a business deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto startup. “I think it’s a bad signal,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is retiring after this term, said of the pardon. “I don’t like it.”

Such mealy-mouthed admonishments are how we got here in the first place. Republican complicity laid the groundwork for Trump’s creeping authoritarianism. Now that it is in our face with construction plans for a gaudy ballroom for the elites, as food assistance for hungry children is threatened, Republicans’ faint criticism is even more deafening in its impotence. The painfully slow, but steady, erosion in conservative base support is the only silver lining.

The post Donald Trump’s wrecking ball hits his own movement appeared first on Salon.com.