NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump’s privately funded $200 million White House ballroom is the latest “bold, necessary addition” to the executive residence, officials said, describing the East Wing construction as a continuation of presidential upgrades dating back more than a century.
Photos of the East Wing façade being demolished went viral Monday, prompting criticism online and a swift rebuttal from the White House, which wrote that “unhinged leftists and their Fake News allies are clutching their pearls over President Donald J. Trump’s visionary addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom … a bold, necessary addition that echoes the storied history of improvements and additions from commanders-in-chief to keep the executive residence a beacon of American excellence.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the president’s message Tuesday on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” saying, “I believe there’s a lot of fake outrage right now.
HILLARY CLINTON FIRES UP VOTERS AGAINST TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM CONSTRUCTION: ‘NOT HIS HOUSE”
“Nearly every single president who’s lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own,” Leavitt added. “In fact, presidents for decades — in modern times — have joked about how they wished they had a larger event space here at the White House, something that could hold hundreds more people than the current East Room and State Dining Room.
“President Obama even complained that, during his tenure, he had to hold a state dinner on the South Lawn and rent a very expensive tent.”
Work continues on the demolition of a part of the East Wing of the White House Tuesday before construction of a new ballroom. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
In an article shared Tuesday, the administration listed more than a dozen examples of leaders “renovating, expanding and modernizing” the property to “meet the needs of the present day,” from Theodore…
