I despise trump, but several things lead me to believe that something else is going on with the ballroom. First, the cost for the 90,000 square foot building, $200 to $300 million, works out to between $2,222 to $3,333 per square foot. That is an insane cost for a building. Second, designing a 90,000 sq. ft. building is complex and takes awhile. There is no way that this was all done between January 20 and September.

Third, underneath the East Wing is the bunker, built during WWII and where the president and senior staff go during a war or other emergency. Now things start to make sense. The huge cost must be to expand and modernize the bunker, not gold plating for the ballroom.

Donors may get a window or table named for them in the ballroom but my guess is that the funding for the bunker will come from the black budget for classified programs. Planning for this must have been underway for years by military and national security personnel.

The ballroom is just a cover story (pun intended) and trump is having fun with it. I predict that when workers begin doing stuff below ground there will be screens and barricades to prevent anyone from seeing what they are doing. Karoline Leavitt will explain “It is just foundation work for the ballroom, nothing to see here.”

In the course of defending the work in a lawsuit brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the administration claims the work involves national security and offered to brief the judge on classified details. Work continues below ground but foundation work will not begin until January and above-ground work will not start until April 2026.