White House staffers don’t appear to care all that much about the ongoing demolition of the East Wing occurring in the middle of the government shutdown.
“Not affecting me at all, to be honest,” a White House aide tells WIRED. This source, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, adds they “have not thought about it” and that they’ve “probably only heard a handful of people talking about it.”
President Donald Trump is moving ahead on a multi-hundred-million-dollar, privately funded ballroom that would supplant the East Wing, which was added onto the White House in 1902 before undergoing an expansion in 1942. Images of the demolition were met with shock and varying degrees of outrage, as the administration had not indicated there would be any wrecking crews involved for the ballroom project.
The East Wing of the White House is the traditional working home for first ladies and their staff, not to mention the site of a long line of historic events.
This is, ostensibly, where first lady Melania Trump’s office would be. Even though the first lady has chosen to stay in New York full-time thus far in Trump 2.0, there were several teams of staffers who were effectively evicted some time before the cranes started banging away on Monday.
According to another White House official, the office of the first lady will move into the White House proper. Calligraphers—yes, there is evidently a team of decorative handwriters that had been operating out of the East Wing—the White House Military Office, the White House Visitors Office, and the Office of Legislative Affairs are all moving into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street, according to the same official.
A spokesperson for the first lady declined to comment on where she will work while she’s in DC or what her thoughts are on the demolition of the site that once housed her famous display of 40 red Christmas trees in 2018. (This was the same holiday season when the Trumps took phone calls from children, and the president asked a 7-year-old if they were “still a believer in Santa” because at that age, “it’s marginal.”)
One Trumpworld source familiar with the situation was dismissive that the demolition could cause any problems with the first lady or among other staff.
“This is such a non-issue,” they tell WIRED, also requesting anonymity to discuss the mood internally. “It hasn’t come up in a single conversation I’ve had with administration officials in the past several weeks.”
