The Washington Post defends Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the White House
The editorial board of the Washington Post, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, expressed approval of President Donald Trump’s “aggressive” decision to demolish the East Wing of the White House in order to erect a massive ballroom financed by private companies, including Amazon.
“Strong leaders reject calcification,” the Washington Post editorial board said in the editorial titled “In Defense of the White House Ballroom,” published Saturday.
“Many see the rubble [of the East Wing] as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard for norms and the rule of law,” reads the Post editorial. But others “see what they like in Trump: a lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, an agent of change unafraid to decisively embrace the status quo, and a developer who cuts red tape that would thwart any politician normal”.
“In classic Trump fashion, the president pursues a reasonable idea in the most shocking way possible,” the Post editorial read. The article claimed that privately, “many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses recognize the long-overdue need for an event space like the one Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents must be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and that VIPs are forced to use portable toilets.”
Bezos, currently executive chairman of Amazon, purchased the Washington Post in 2013 and owns it in his personal capacity. He recently made several changes to the storied newspaper, including revamping the Post’s opinion section earlier this year to focus on “personal liberties and the free market” rather than “general” issues. After Washington Post opinion editor David Shipley resigned following Bezos’ decision, the paper in June named Adam O’Neal, a former Economist correspondent and Wall Street Journal opinion editor, as opinion editor.
Trump’s planned gilded ballroom, which will be built where the East Wing once stood, will cost about $300 million. Amazon is one of the project’s donors, according to the White House.
The Post editorial acknowledges that “ballroom fundraising creates problematic conflicts of interest,” but it does not identify Amazon among the donors.
After raising these ethical questions without further discussion, the Washington Post editorial board declared in its article that “Trump’s aggressive approach” was “justified.” The editorial cites two examples: a year-long delay in getting approvals for improvements to the White House perimeter fence after a 2014 incident in which a fence jumper made his way inside the White House; and an even longer approval process for the erection of the “modest” Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial near the National Air and Space Museum.
Other corporate donors to Trump’s new ballroom include Comcast, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. Google is also listed as a donor; Alphabet, parent company of Google and YouTube, has agreed to pay Trump $22 million as part of the settlement of the president’s “censorship” lawsuit over YouTube’s suspension of his account for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. According to court documents, Trump spent $22 million building the new White House ballroom.
In its Oct. 25 editorial, the Post said, “Preservation advocates express horror that Trump did not submit his plans for their review, but the truth is that this project would not have happened, certainly not during his term, if the president had followed the traditional review process. The plans would have been killed by a thousand paper cuts.”
“The White House cannot simply be a museum of the past,” the Post editorial concluded. “Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness. Strong leaders reject calcification. In this sense, Trump’s pledge is a shot in the arm for NIMBYs everywhere.”
Trump’s destruction of the East Wing included the demolition of the 42-seat White House movie theater, installed by FDR in 1942. Over the years, the room had hosted screenings of President Barack Obama with the cast and crew of “Lincoln” and “Selma”; Richard Nixon watching “Patton” the night before the invasion of Cambodia; JFK’s second viewing of “From Russia With Love” the day before his assassination in Dallas; and Jimmy Carter’s screening of “Apocalypse Now” with Francis Ford Coppola before the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, according to the New York Times.
Trump himself once watched “one of his favorite films,” Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic “Sunset Boulevard,” in the East Wing theater, according to the Times.
Pictured above: An excavator works to clear rubble after the demolition of the East Wing of the White House October 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.
