The saga of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom last week followed a familiar arc of the Trump era, with a group of the president’s critics sounding the alarm over his latest provocation — in this case, the sudden and unexpected demolition of the East Wing — and a host of others questioning what was going on.
After all, he’s just building a ballroom. And the White House needed a ballroom!
“Of all the reasons to criticize President Trump, this has to be considered the dumbest,” writes the National Review, which is often skeptical of Trump.
The Washington Post’s editorial board said Trump has tended to “pursue a smart idea in the sharpest way.” But he praised him for going ahead and taking a “shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere.”
Well, it turns out that most Americans have nothing to dislike about Trump’s handling of the East Wing and the ballroom.
In fact, it seems to be one of the most unpopular things he’s done in this second term. And it’s not just those who don’t like Trump who object.
A new Yahoo News-YouGov survey is the first qualitative survey to examine the ballroom saga in depth.
It shows Americans disapprove of Trump’s demolition of the East Wing (57%-26%), his plans to replace it with a 90,000-square-foot ballroom (61%-25%) and his broader approach to the situation (55%-28%), all by roughly a 2-to-1 margin.
Even Trump’s supporters are not very protective of him.
For example, only 55% of Republicans approved of both the demolition of the East Wing and the construction of the ballroom. That compares with 94% of Democrats who disapproved of both. About one quarter of Republicans disapproved of both points.
Indeed, the passions on this issue seem to be very “against”.
Only 18% of Americans strongly approved of Trump’s handling of the situation, compared to 46% who strongly disapproved. And among those who categorically disapproved, there was a majority of independents: 52%.
So that’s it does seems to have greatly enlivened people of various stripes.
None of this is to say that it changes the political issue, which would send Trump’s overall approval numbers plummeting to new lows. But it reinforces the fact that he just keeps doing things in a rather haphazard way, which gives a lot of people reason to dislike what they see – even some people who generally approve of him, it seems.
The big question from there is why people don’t approve.
Is it just because they don’t really like change? Were the images of the destroyed East Wing so stark? Or maybe people objected to the lack of transparency and Trump downplaying the scale of construction. (Trump said less than three months ago that the ballroom project “will not interfere with the current building,” even as the White House released images showing the giant ballroom replacing the East Wing entirely.)
These are all valid hypotheses. But the numbers may point in the other direction.
While disapproving by about 2 to 1 no matter how you asked the question, people were actually slightly more likely to oppose plans for the ballroom (61%) than to demolish the East Wing (57%).
It’s a bit intuitive.
The demolition of the East Wing was the worst moment. You could see a situation where people might think the ballroom is okay and even necessary, but they don’t like the way the east wing has been destroyed. But in fact, Americans disliked the ballroom little more than dismantling the East Wing.
What this might suggest: People don’t like the idea of building a new $300 million privately funded ballroom on the White House grounds at a time of significant economic hardship and inflation.
Trump has shown remarkably little concern for such optics problems. He gilded the interior of the White House. He and his family have taken little care to defend themselves against accusations that they ignored conflicts of interest and enriched themselves by using the presidency, primarily through their crypto ventures. As the country grapples with the effects of a government shutdown, Trump has been abroad, accepting gifts like a gold crown from South Korea.
There are signs that maybe people are starting to take notice. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 61% of Americans, and even 31% of Republicans, said they believed Trump at least “probably” misused his position to enrich himself, his friends and family.
A CBS News-YouGov poll around the same time found that 75% of Americans said Trump was not focused enough on “reducing the prices of goods and services.”
In other words, this doesn’t seem like the best time to bulldoze part of the White House in the name of building an expensive party venue. And Trump has done a great job of getting people to notice that that’s exactly what he’s doing.
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