Trump refers to part of White House residence as 'a knock-out panel' to be demolished for his ballroom
Before we move past it, let’s pause for a moment to note that earlier on Thursday Donald Trump dropped a very strong hint that he intends to demolish at least part of the original exterior wall of the White House residence to link the historic building to his new ballroom.
During his remarks in the White House East Room, Trump turned and pointed to the golden drapes over the grand window that used to lead to the roof of the East Wing, before it was entirely demolished to make room for the ballroom.
Donald Trump gestured to where the entrance to his new ballroom will be as he spoke during an event on foster care in the East Room of the White House on Thursday. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
“And right behind me by the way, in about two years from now, we’ll use a much bigger room,” Trump said. “It’ll be right here,” the president said, pointing at the large window in the center of the room, which was part of the original construction and was there when the second president, John Adams took up residence in the White House in 1800.
“It’ll be right here, this will be the entrance,” Trump said, waving his hand to show the contours of the new glass hallway he plans to build in place of the original window to connect the residence to the ballroom.
“That’s a knock-out panel, it’s called a knock-out,” Trump said, using a construction term for a removable section of a wall, designed during construction to be easily removed to allow for future expansion.
“It looks pretty nice right now, but gonna look a lot better in a little while,” the president said.
Trump’s description of the grand window that has stood for centuries, as historic presidential events unfolded in the East Room — including both Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy lying in state, Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, Richard Nixon bidding farewell to his staff, Bill Clinton apologizing for his affair with Monica Lewinsky and Barack Obama announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden — as something designed to be knocked out was obviously false.
But the matter-of-fact description of his plan to knock a hole in the exterior wall of the White House also contradicts his own claim, in July, that his ballroom project “won’t interfere with the current building, it won’t be… It will be near it but not touching it. It pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”