White House deluged by 97 percent negative formal comments about MAGA ballroom: 'Disgrace'
U.S. President Donald Trump attends the Congressional Picnic at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
March 05, 2026
President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project is being flooded with public comments — and the results are overwhelmingly against it.
The president triggered widespread outrage last year when he announced plans for a huge, gaudy ballroom more than twice the size of the central White House building, and then summarily knocked down the East Wing to make room for it, bypassing any regular procedure. The price tag for the project continues to balloon; Trump has vowed it will all be constructed with private donations and not taxpayer money, but this opens up the risk of conflicts of interest and influence-buying.
According to The Washington Post, the public comments filed over the project are 97 percent negative.
"Members of the public sent more than 35,000 comments about the project to the National Capital Planning Commission ahead of its Thursday hearing to review the ballroom, according to a Washington Post analysis of comments posted on the commission’s website. The 'vast majority' of comments came from those who oppose the plan, commission staff said," according to the report. "More than 100 people are also slated to testify at the virtual hearing."
Among the comments, which are posted online, are those that range from, “I oppose the spending of $300 million on this project, which was initiated without the proper authorization, permits, or design review,” to "The destruction of President's Park and The White House is a disgrace!"
And it's not just opponents of Trump expressing their anger. Jim Cunningham, a local GOP leader in Media, Pennsylvania, told The Post, “I voted for Trump three times. But I did not vote for this. Trump is only a temporary occupant of the White House. It belongs to the American people. It’s not his personal property.”
The White House ballroom is one of many grand projects Trump wants erected in his honor, another being a massive arch he hopes to construct in D.C. for America's 250th anniversary celebration.