A demolition crew takes apart the facade of the East Wing of the White House, where U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed ballroom is being built, in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 21, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump is trying to destroy everything about the government that functions for the people in order to reshape it in his image, former White House ethics expert turned States United Democracy Center chief Norm Eisen told MSNBC's "The Weeknight" in a highly animated tirade.
This comes as Trump moves to bulldoze the East Wing of the White House to make room for his massive, corporate-funded ballroom project, all in the middle of a federal government shutdown being waged over whether people will continue to have funding for health care.
"I think, in a very real way, that he doesn't care about the food lines that are happening," said anchor and former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. "The lines are happening at food banks around the country. He doesn't care about the impact that's coming because of the shutdown. We haven't even talked about what people are going to see when they get to Thanksgiving and going to the Christmas holidays. How does this translate, do you think, for the American people when they see the symbolism of the East Wing being torn down ... What do you think people are hearing and seeing out there?"
"I think the totality of it does penetrate," said Eisen. "We've seen poll after poll lately where Donald Trump is at historic approval ratings, down as low as 37 percent."
"When I worked in the White House — which I view as holy ground because of the lives that have been sacrificed for the American idea that that building represents — when I would walk in that East Wing that is so cruelly torn down, I would get chills at the history of what had happened in that building," he said, growing louder and more agitated. I do think the American people get the totality, and the thing that Donald Trump is doing, he's tearing down that building, but he's tearing down the human infrastructure. He's attacking the government employees in this shutdown."
This, he said, "is why we at the Democracy Defender Fund have gone to court. We've, with our partners, with the federal employee labor unions and other wonderful partners, we've gotten three trials. We got the latest one today to say you can't tear down the human infrastructure, you can't fire people. There's no legal basis to do it in a shutdown. He wants to inflict that same, same pain. That's not what America is about."
"So I do think you're seeing a public repudiation of Trump," he added. "And of course, we're going to have a referendum on him. New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention races. And I think you're going to see powerful repudiation."