Chris Hayes has a strong theory as to why the president can’t stop talking about his ballroom.
The MSNBC host believes that the much-discussed ballroom is a fixture of Trump’s mind to save him from thinking too much about his own mortality.
Hayes unpacked the issue on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Wednesday night, saying that while Trump is “the most bored man alive,” the mental energy that goes into planning the White House ballroom keeps him engaged.
“He’s the most bored man alive,” Hayes began. “He’s the most bored dude in the history of the universe. Like when you watch him at these White House events, like everyone makes a big deal about him falling asleep, but it’s actually a state of waking boredom.”
“There’s one thing that holds his interest, there’s one thing he’s so interested in, he just wants to talk about, which is the ballroom,” Hayes continued.
“So any time it’s like people ask him questions about like, ‘Well, you know, no oil is getting through the Strait of Hormuz.’ He’s like, ‘Let’s talk about the ballroom,” he said. Meyers agreed, joking, “He just is like fully becoming a construction guy again.”
Hayes dug even further, purporting that the president’s obsession is actually a fascination with legacy and a phobia of aging.
“He’s a person who’s obsessed with his legacy right now,” he explained. “None of us, I think, are great at facing our own mortality. I would say he’s, particularly, probably not great at it.”
“I don’t think he’s done a lot of work on himself, I would say, in therapy language,” Hayes added, laughing.
Meyers replied, “I mean, the ballroom does feel like something you’d really want to dig into at the therapy level.”
Hayes said it’s almost impossible to keep the president off the topic of the ballroom for longer than “three or four minutes in a row.”
“That’s all that’s occupying him. And I do think it’s become this kind of, sort of, psychological safe space for him to go back to and a physical safe space for him,” he continued. “That’s the funny thing about it too, right? He keeps saying it’s like it’s the ballroom, but it’s also the bunker.”
Hayes concluded, “Like, what exactly are you planning, buddy?”
The political commentator’s analysis of Trump comes just days after the president suggested that the ballroom is pertinent to national security. After an attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump pushed for the completion of his 90,000-square-foot ballroom, saying that the room would be secure and “bulletproof.”
The ballroom could now cost taxpayers $1 billion, as part of a GOP funding bill that would allocate funds “for the purposes of security adjustments and upgrades,” which includes enhancements relating to “the East Wing Modernization Project, including above-ground and below-ground security features.”
