President Donald Trump snapped at a White House reporter on Thursday after being pressed about the decision to demolish the East Wing as part of his plan to build a massive new ballroom on the White House grounds. When Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason asked about transparency around the project, Trump cut him off and fired back, calling Mason a “third-rate reporter.”
The tense exchange capped a week of uproar over the construction, which has shifted from partial teardown to full-scale demolition in a matter of days. Fresh images showed the East Wing reduced to rubble by Thursday afternoon, with debris piled where the First Lady’s offices once stood and crews preparing the site for a 90,000-square-foot venue Trump says will host state events. Reports indicated that the East Wing “appears to be” entirely demolished, with satellite photos capturing the transformation from September to October.
Trump has been selling the project as overdue and grand. “They’ve wanted a ballroom for 150 years, and I’m giving that honor to this wonderful place,” he said earlier in the week, celebrating LSU’s baseball championship inside the White House as excavators worked outside. The price tag has ballooned from an initial $200 million estimate to roughly $300 million, a figure the White House says will be privately funded by Trump and donors, although detailed financing remains unclear.
The visuals are stark. Photographs show the East Wing’s facade torn away and construction workers picking through mangled rebar, a scene that has rattled preservation groups and sparked demands for a pause. The White House has argued the work is proceeding legally during the government shutdown, and aides say a “modernized” East Wing will eventually accompany the ballroom.
Critics say the process has been murky from the start. In July, Trump insisted the ballroom would not “interfere with the current building,” adding that it would sit near the residence while paying “total respect” to the historic structure. This week, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was pressed on why the public was not told the entire East Wing would be razed. “With any construction project, changes come,” Leavitt replied, saying the administration had shared renderings and updates as plans evolved.
The demolition has also rekindled larger questions about oversight. The National Capital Planning Commission is expected to review elements of the ballroom plan, but critics argue that full East Wing demolition should have been folded into a broader federal review process before wrecking crews moved in. Preservationists warn the 90,000-square-foot hall could dwarf the 55,000-square-foot White House, changing the visual balance of the campus and its public spaces.
Public reaction has split along predictably political lines. Supporters cast the project as a privately funded upgrade that will allow the White House to host larger events without renting outside venues. Opponents see the teardown as a symbol of presidential overreach, a showy project pushed through without candor, and now punctuated by the president berating a reporter for asking why the public was kept in the dark. Trump’s jab at Mason, delivered with cameras rolling, ensured the controversy moved from architectural to personal, and it guaranteed that questions about transparency would keep coming as the ballroom rises.
