Trump drew around 'life safety' concerns in ballroom plans with trademark Sharpie: report

President Donald Trump took his signature black Sharpie to early White House ballroom designs, scratching out service stairs and corridors and expanding the room's footprint as the project's first architect blared warnings about fire safety, according to a new report.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that architect James McCrery II left the project in October 2025 after repeatedly warning that Trump's preferred design lacked enough emergency exit routes and fire-containment measures, and two people familiar with the discussions said the president brushed off the concerns and insisted that no building codes apply to White House construction.

"I am the code," Trump said, according to those people.

Documents obtained by the Post include preliminary drawings with dozens of undated handwritten notes that appeared to come from Trump.

One set of markings enlarged McCrery's sketch of a 640-seat ballroom, scratched out proposed service corridors and stretched the room across the entire width of the second floor, while other markings crossed out two sets of service stairs and some weighed in on details as small as which way doors should swing.

The documents were later stored at the White House in a box labeled "Docs bearing POTUS's mark."

McCrery warned that most guests could not quickly leave through the main entrance in an emergency under the design, the Post reported, and he also said the other exits were insufficient and that little would stop a kitchen fire from spreading into the event space above.

One early design had just seven stalls in the women's restroom, for a ballroom that eventually grew to seat more than 1,300 people.

White House meeting notes from Sept. 30, 2025, read: "Life safety — big concern." Notes from a Nov. 6 meeting, held after McCrery left, read: "Life safety — needs POTUS buy in." The Post could not determine whether a code review was ever completed.

The project runs through the Executive Residence rather than a federal agency, which exempts it from a federal law requiring compliance with national safety standards, and the District of Columbia has no jurisdiction over federal property.

The builder, Clark Construction, has a contract requiring it to follow codes or "guidance provided by the Contracting Officer." That officer is Joshua Fisher, director of White House management and administration and an assistant to Trump.

A White House spokesman said it would be "factually false" to link McCrery's departure to code issues, and he added that "life safety issues have been addressed and resolved continuously."

In his own statement, McCrery said only that he "stepped aside" after completing the earliest designs.