Karoline Leavitt threw a fit after architects exposed glaring design flaws in President Donald Trump’s ballroom vanity project.
The president’s $400 million White House ballroom was scrutinized by a trained architect, a fine arts expert, and an urban planning writer in The New York Times on Sunday.
The authors warned that the 90,000-square-foot ballroom has “fake windows on the north side,” columns that “block interior ballroom view,” and an “unnecessarily big” rooftop area. They also noted that “its stairs lead nowhere,” as several of the staircases from the ground appear not to be connected to a way into the ballroom.
Leavitt, 28, lashed out at the Times and the writers on X, attacking their credentials and claiming that the “People’s House” has “needed” a ballroom for decades.
“The New York Times had three random people who have ‘studied fine arts,’ ‘long written about urban planning,’ and never built anything to write an article criticizing the new White House ballroom,” the White House press secretary said, alongside screenshots of the writers’ bylines.
Leavitt, a failed Congressional candidate who graduated from Saint Anselm College, a New Hampshire liberal arts college, with a degree in politics and communications in 2019, continued, “President Trump and his lead architect have built world-class buildings around the world, and they are ensuring the People’s House finally has a beautiful ballroom that’s been needed for decades — at no expense to the taxpayer.”
Later, she reposted Fox News columnist David Marcus’ post calling on the Times to “do” the privately financed Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
The White House has maintained that the new ballroom’s $400 million price tag will be “privately funded” by Trump’s billionaire friends.
Leavitt’s use of the term “People’s House” stands out because Trump barged ahead with his lavish project without seeking Congressional approval nor independent reviews, tearing down the historic East Wing last October—despite previously promising that the ballroom’s construction would leave the existing building untouched.
The National Capital Planning Commission, which Trump has stacked with loyalists, is expected to take a vote on the ballroom on April 2. Around 98 percent of 32,000 public comments that have come in during the commission’s public comment period are against the construction of the ballroom, according to a review by the Times.
When reached for comment, Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the New York Times, told the Daily Beast, “We’re confident in the accuracy of our story.”
“Our article is based on interviews with architects, current and former government officials, and historical preservationists,” she said. “It relies on public documentation of the building plans, and it quotes White House officials involved in the planning of the new ballroom. Compared with other major projects in Washington, this one has had little time for public review, and experts warn the design has many issues.”
The price tag and scope of Trump’s ballroom have changed since the president first announced the project. He replaced James McCrery II as the ballroom’s chief architect in December, after the architect raised concerns that the president’s vision for the ballroom was oversized.
The ballroom, as it stands, is set to be more than three times the size of the White House, which will disrupt the historic property’s symmetry, the Times noted.
“The hurried reviews, with construction cranes already swiveling above the White House grounds, are an abrupt departure from how new monuments, museums and even modest renovations have been designed and refined in the capital for decades,” the Times’ experts wrote. “And the ballroom will be worse off for it, architects warn.”
