All posts tagged "Demolition"

A historian who has written about former ladies and the White House said that kicking first lady Melania Trump and her staff out of the East Wing to build a ballroom "sends a message" and has a "jarring" impact on Americans watching the destruction.

Kate Andersen Brower, author of "Exploring the White House," told CNN anchor Dana Bash during a panel discussion Thursday about how the East Wing is where the first lady's office has been located, and the demolition has knocked down the public entrance of the building.

"I think that it's jarring for to people to see the demolition take place like this, especially when we were told that it wouldn't happen quite this way, that the entire East Wing wouldn't be knocked down," Andersen Brower said. "And if you just think of the history there, I mean, Martin Luther King visiting Johnson during the Civil Rights Bill, FDR handling World War II. I mean, anybody who's worked in the White House knows that you're standing in this hallowed ground, and it was never meant to be a palace, and I think that's something that is especially concerning about this is just the size of it. I mean, almost two football fields long. It's really unusual." ...

An expert warned Monday that the White House demolition exposed President Donald Trump's real goal behind the ballroom — saying "he will not leave."

Journalist Brian Karem told fellow journalists Jim Acosta and April Ryan on "The Jim Acosta Show" podcast that the images were striking and revealed much more than just the president's desire to build a ballroom.

"This is for Donald Trump's ego. That's right. And his legacy," Karem said. "Donald Trump does not want to leave the White House until they roll him out in the coffin and put him in state in that ballroom and charge you $1,000 a head to view him for a week. That's Donald Trump's goal. He will not leave the White House. He'll find a way to try and run in 2028. This is all a monument to his ego. He came out over the weekend and said, 'I'm not a king.' And then what did he immediately do?" ...

WASHINGTON – Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a leading GOP presidential hopeful, predicted the 2012 primaries would be a bloodbath for his party and could gift reelection to President Barack Obama on a silver plate.

Israeli bulldozers backed by police destroyed dozens of gravestones in a Muslim cemetery in central Jerusalem on Tuesday, according to an AFP photographer.