Donald Trump, Demolition Man
If his East Wing project stalls out,
that will serve as a potent metaphor for his presidency.
Alex Wong / Getty
January 28, 2026, 5:17 PM ET
Destruction is easier than
construction. If Donald Trump’s decades as a real-estate developer didn’t teach
him that, his time as president might.
In October, the administration
bulldozed the East Wing of the White House in order to build a ballroom he
wants to put on the site. Although Trump had promised over the summer that the
project wouldn’t “interfere with the current building,” workers razed the
entire structure, which was constructed in 1902 and expanded in 1942. Trump
managed this the same way he has so much in his second term: He simply didn’t
ask permission from any of the possible relevant authorities, including
Congress, and acted so fast that no court could restrain him. In order to
circumvent the legislature’s power of the purse, he sought donations from
private corporations and individuals.
The demolition was hardly the most
egregious action that Trump has taken as president, but it captured popular and
media attention because it was such a clear metaphor: Trump had secretively
demolished part of a building that belongs to the people of the United States,
treating it as his own. That metaphor may become more potent yet. Recent events
suggest that the gaping hole where the East Wing once was may lie there
exposed, undeveloped, and contested for quite some time.
In a court hearing last week, Richard
Leon, a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush, skewered the government lawyers representing
the administration against a challenge to the ballroom, which would be as tall
as the original executive mansion and have nearly double its footprint.
Although a law enables the executive branch to conduct maintenance on the
building without congressional authorization, Leon said it was not intended to
cover $400 million projects. A Justice Department attorney suggested that
Trump’s ballroom was similar to previous renovations, including a pool added
decades ago, but Leon was not having it.
“The Gerald Ford swimming pool? You
compare that to ripping down the East Wing and building a new East Wing? Come
on,” he said.
Such reactions from a judge are not
generally considered a favorable omen for a litigant. Leon has not issued a
ruling yet, and whatever he concludes is likely to be appealed. But the hearing
suggests the real possibility that Trump will be unable to construct anything
in the East Wing’s place, leaving just an empty site and idled construction
equipment.
Destruction followed by stagnation
seems to be something of an MO, the likely outcome for some of Trump’s less
tangible and visible changes to the federal government. Consider last week’s
clash over Greenland. Trump threatened European and Canadian leaders with
tariffs and unspecified future consequences, culminating in Trump settling for
a tentative deal that appears to closely resemble the existing arrangement, but
not before creating bad blood and encouraging Europe to think of the U.S. as
not much of a friend. Trump has the capacity to tear down the global
international order, but he has neither the plans nor the wherewithal to
rebuild anything in its place.
Similarly, DOGE found it relatively
easy to destroy USAID, but the administration hasn’t been able to create any
new way of extending soft power around the globe. Leveling threats of tariffs
on adversaries and allies alike has been relatively easy, but the result has
been a weakening of the economy and American trade ties, and a crumbling of the
old global-trade system. He has been unable to bring a huge boom of manufacturing jobs and factories to
U.S. shores.
Trump’s aggressive immigration
enforcement has deported so many people, led so many people to leave the
country, and discouraged so many people from coming that U.S. population growth slowed dramatically between
June 2024, near the end of the Biden administration, and July 2025, according
to numbers released this week by the Census Bureau. Yet the right’s hope
for pronatalist policies that would try to
drive up birth rates have amounted to little. Reduced population growth—or a
sinking population, should it come to that—threatens economic growth.
Trump no longer talks about fully
repealing the Affordable Care Act; he and Republicans have now adopted a
strategy of slowly bleeding the program. The GOP-controlled Congress allowed
subsidies to lapse at the end of 2025, helping produce a big drop in the number of people insured
under the ACA. But despite offering “concepts of a plan” during the
presidential campaign, and rolling out a “Great Healthcare Plan” this
month, experts say Trump still hasn’t put together
anything resembling a real blueprint for improving health insurance. Meanwhile,
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems to be having
much more luck undermining the existing institutions and practices of American
public health than remaking the nation’s practices in his idiosyncratic image.
Even if these things are ultimately
achieved, the difficulty and cost of doing so is likely to be much greater than
Trump has promised to voters. The same is true of the ballroom project. The
president first said it would cost $200 million. By October, the price tag had
risen to $300 million. In December, the administration quoted a $400 million
figure. Anyone can guess what the final bill might be if the ballroom is ever
built, but given the private funding, each jump in the cost creates new
opportunities for donors to buy influence from the president.
Some Democrats have said that any new
president who replaces Trump should move promptly to tear down his ballroom. If
the project never moves forward, though, they’ll have no need. Perhaps they
could instead leave the empty site, a fitting monument to the Trump presidency.
