Jon Stewart Unloads on Trump for Demolishing White House
Running the country from Mar-a-Lago would probably be more “cost effective,” Stewart said.
Jon Stewart ripped Donald Trump for going back on his word that he wouldn’t “interfere” with the existing structure before he demolished the White House’s East Wing to build his ballroom.
Responding to a listener question on his Weekly Show podcast Thursday that asked whether it would be more “cost effective” for Trump to “just make Mar-a-Lago the new White House and Palm Beach, the new capital,” Stewart quipped that would be “smart.”
Trump bragged that his upcoming ballroom would be "one of the most beautiful in the world."
The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty Im
“That is fiscally responsible. That is somebody that is looking out for the debt,” Stewart said, unlike the president, who officially embarked on his brazen ballroom project Monday when the White House began its tear-down. “I don’t know if any of you have ever had to try to like, redo a bathroom, but it is a s--t show when it comes to permits and everything else. And these guys just were like, ‘I’m gonna build a ballroom.’”
“Have you ever tried to f--- with a historic building? It is nearly impossible,” he added. But leave it to Trump to take on the task, Stewart jokingly praised, even after he’d originally declared in July that the project “won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
Stewart called him out on the declaration Thursday. “He had literally said… ‘The White House will remain sacrosanct. It will not be touched.’ And then the first picture is a giant, like Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball going right through a window on the East Wing.’”
The host also called out the media for reporting that the White House would release its “plan,” for the demolition. “There’s no plan,” Stewart said, as they’d originally said they weren’t going to demolish the building. The size of the project, which as Stewart told listeners, would nearly double the ballroom’s capacity, also signals a lack of direction, he explained.
The facade of the East Wing of the White House is demolished by work crews on October 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“Somehow the ballroom, which was going to hold 600 people is now gonna hold a thousand people. And you’re like, how many? When—how—what?” he asked.
“They’re gonna have a building larger than the White House. Like, They’re gonna have to rent this f---ing thing out for Bar Mitzvahs to make any money back.”
Stewart joked that the listener who wrote in is right—Trump should just be president from Florida. “Just switch it,” he said. “He’s gonna be president forever anyway, what’s the difference?”
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“And if not, he’ll just hand it over…I mean, he’s got a whole brood now, so he can hand it over to one of them and just keep it down there.” He darkly quipped to conclude, “I’m very excited about this. And then they’ll put up the Arc de Trump. Yeah, everything’s going great. Son of a b----!”
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