The White House has announced plans to build a $200m (£151m) new ballroom, fulfilling an often-repeated desire of US President Donald Trump.
The new ballroom will be built alongside a "modernised" East Wing of the White House, which currently houses the offices of First Lady Melania Trump and other key White House posts.
The money will be donated directly by Trump and other so-far anonymous donors, with work beginning in September, according to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Trump has repeatedly promised to build a "beautiful" ballroom at the White House, and in 2016 offered to pay $100m during Barack Obama's administration - which the then-President rejected.
In a briefing for reporters at the White House on Thursday, Leavitt said that the "much needed and exquisite addition" to the White House will be approximately 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq m) with a seating capacity of about 650.
Many formal White House functions are held in the White House's East Room, which can seat approximately 200 people.
The new ballroom, Leavitt added, would also eliminate the need for a "large and unsightly tent" to be installed for state dinners and other large events, which sometimes include world leaders.
According to Leavitt, construction is expected to be completed "long before" the end of Trump's term in office in January 2029.
ORIGINAL CAPTION: A rendering shows what the outside would look like of the renovated East Wing of the White House. The right portion of the building is the East Wing.
The president wants the arch to be based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, and to welcome people into the nation's capital from Arlington National Cemetery as they cross the Memorial Bridge.
"Every time somebody rides over that beautiful bridge to the Lincoln Memorial, they literally say something is supposed be here. We have versions of it… This is a mock-up," Trump told donors on Wednesday night, referring to a grassy, circular area at the end of the bridge.
At a dinner to unveil his plans for the ballroom, Trump said there were three version of the arch - small, medium and large - but that he liked the largest one the best.
Trump said the ballroom project was "fully financed" and some of the leftover money would be used to fund the arch.
It's not yet clear when construction will begin or how much it will cost.
Last week, Trump displayed renderings for the structure on the Resolute Desk showing a map of the Memorial Bridge that also included a replica of the Lincoln Memorial. A model of his proposed archway stood on the Virginia state side of the Potomac River.
On Saturday, Trump posted an illustration of a plan designed by Harrison Design architect Nicolas Leo Charbonneau on Truth Social.
Charbonneau, a partner at Harrison Design, posted a watercolour rendering of the the proposal on social media on 4 September, writing "America needs a triumphal arch!"
According to Axios, Trump has had models and dioramas built for other projects he is considering and has directed how and where new marble-tiled floors would be laid in the White House.
It would be probably help if Donald Trump had sense of taste....any sense of esthetic at all.
All though I suppose garish and tacky could be a sort of esthetic style.
You may be right about an arch as well . If it could be done tastefully....yeah I know but maybe someone could sit on some of Trumps impulses ..
It would be probably help if Donald Trump had sense of taste....any sense of esthetic at all.
All though I suppose garish and tacky could be a sort of esthetic style.
You may be right about an arch as well . If it could be done tastefully....yeah I know but maybe someone could sit on some of Trumps impulses ..
Actually doing what they promised and following their oath to the Constitution; instead of doing what was illegally controlling the public, directly harming people, and likely unconstitutional as well.
I'm not gonna pretend for a minute that Hegseth is doing this for any other reason but to silence bad press about himself, but maybe the freedom of the press in this day and age should be re-evaluated - especially when journalistic integrity is basically not a thing anymore. From social media to the NYT, everyone will take things out of context or needlessly magnify shit that either
1. can't be changed ever
2. will be forgotten in a blink of an eye
3. publicly attack people they don't agree with for the dumbest things
We don't even need foreign interference campaigns. The shitty news outlets do the job for adversaries better than the adversaries can do. I can't remember the last time I read something from MSM that actually had consequential takes that weren't just "carving a niche out of reality just to sound authoritative". Even as someone who despised Trump, the utter stupidity that CNN, NYT and WP pump out to attack him day in and day out drowns out any actual discussion on the actual consequences of his actions - so much so that I completely stopped reading the news.
And so in a country where people's votes are affected by whatever word feces the MSM decides to excrete day in and day out, maybe it's good to keep things out of the press. I'm tired of bloomberg, economist, national interest, CNN, NYT, Fox news or any of these shitty outlets pumping out some of the worse takes just to ride on an already raging hate boner that people seem to have for the military and for their own country these days. They rage enough and then suddenly the shit I care about starts getting cancelled because public outrage.
I'm of the opinion that if you have no solution to a problem, you (the press) should probably either investigate the problem without shoving your shitty opinions in there or shut the hell up. The press possess immense responsibility that is far greater than that of any individual citizen. If they aren't willing to shoulder that responsibility, then at the very minimum go back to being a government mouthpiece. At least that brings unity.
The only thing absurd about this news item is that the press is hardly the one selling secrets to China. The pentagon should tighten up their information management systems and access management systems while they're at it.
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