The editorial board of the Washington Put up, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, expressed approval of President Donald Trump‘s “aggressive” transfer to tear down the White Home‘s East Wing with a view to erect an enormous ballroom funded by personal firms — together with Amazon.
“Robust leaders reject calcification,” the Washington Put up editorial board stated within the op-ed, titled “In protection of the White Home ballroom,” revealed Saturday.
“Many see the rubble [of the East Wing] as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of legislation,” the Put up’s editorial stated. However others “see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand imaginative and prescient, a change agent unafraid to decisively tackle the established order and a developer slashing by way of purple tape that will stymie any regular politician.”
“In traditional Trump style, the president is pursuing an affordable concept in essentially the most jarring method doable,” the Put up editorial stated. The piece claimed that privately, “many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Homes acknowledge the long-overdue want for an occasion area like what Trump is creating. It’s absurd that tents must be erected on the South Garden for state dinners, and VIPs are compelled to make use of porta-potties.”
Bezos, presently govt chairman of Amazon, purchased the Washington Put up in 2013 and owns it in his private capability. He has not too long ago made a number of modifications to the legendary paper, together with overhauling the Put up’s opinion part earlier this 12 months to give attention to “private liberties and free markets” quite than “broad-based” points. After Washington Put up editorial opinion web page editor David Shipley resigned following Bezos’ determination, the paper in June appointed Adam O’Neal, a former correspondent for the Economist and an opinion author for the Wall Avenue Journal, as opinion editor.
Trump’s deliberate gold-gilded ballroom, to be constructed the place the East Wing as soon as stood, will price an estimated $300 million. Amazon is without doubt one of the donors to the undertaking, based on the White Home.
The Put up’s editorial acknowledged that “the fundraising for the ballroom creates problematic conflicts of curiosity,” however it didn’t determine Amazon as among the many donors.
After elevating these moral points with out extra dialogue, the Washington Put up’s editorial board stated within the piece that “Trump’s aggressive strategy” is “justified.” The op-ed cited two examples: a yearslong delay in getting approvals for enhancing White Home perimeter fencing after a 2014 incident during which a fence-jumper made his manner contained in the White Home; and a good longer approval course of for the erection of the “modest” Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial close to the Nationwide Air and Area Museum.
Different company donors to Trump’s new ballroom embrace Comcast, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and T-Cellular. Google is also listed as a donor; Alphabet, guardian firm of Google and YouTube, agreed to pay Trump $22 million as a part of settling the president’s lawsuit alleging “censorship” over YouTube’s suspension of his account for his function within the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. In line with courtroom paperwork, Trump directed the $22 million go towards the development of the brand new White Home ballroom.
In its Oct. 25 editorial, the Put up stated, “Preservationists categorical horror that Trump didn’t submit his plans to their scrutiny, however the reality is that this undertaking wouldn’t have gotten completed, actually not throughout his time period, if the president had gone by way of the standard assessment course of. The blueprints would have confronted loss of life by a thousand papercuts.”
“The White Home can not merely be a museum to the previous,” the Put up editorial concluded. “Like America, it should evolve with the occasions to keep up its greatness. Robust leaders reject calcification. In that manner, Trump’s endeavor is a shot throughout the bow at NIMBYs in all places.”
Trump’s teardown of the East Wing included the demolition of the White Home’s 42-seat movie show, which FDR put in in 1942. Through the years, the theater was residence to President Barack Obama’s screenings with the casts and crews of “Lincoln” and “Selma”; Richard Nixon’s viewing of “Patton” the night time earlier than the Cambodia invasion; JFK’s second screening of “From Russia With Love” the day earlier than he was assassinated in Dallas; and Jimmy Carter’s screening of “Apocalypse Now,” attended by Francis Ford Coppola, previous to the film’s premiere on the Cannes Movie Competition, based on the New York Instances.
Trump himself as soon as watched “one in every of his favourite motion pictures,” Billy Wilder’s 1950 traditional “Sundown Boulevard,” within the East Wing theater, per the Instances.
Pictured above: An excavator works to clear rubble after the East Wing of the White Home was demolished on Oct. 23, 2025, in Washington, DC..
