Construction began on Monday for yet another gaudy addition to the historic White House’s exterior, courtesy of President Donald Trump.
The Tennessee flagstone currently in place for the West Wing Colonnade walkway, which connects the Oval Office to the executive residence, is being replaced with black granite, according to The New York Post.
The outlet reported that the National Park Service will send the old flagstone pavers to a nursery for safekeeping and future use.
The walkway, also called the 45-second commute, runs along the “Presidential Walk of Fame” installed by Trump to take jabs at his predecessors, particularly former President Joe Biden.
“President Trump continues to implement long-overdue and necessary renovations to beautify the People’s House as we approach our great Nation’s 250th anniversary of independence," White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast in a statement. “Thanks to the Builder-in-Chief, the White House will be properly glorified and remain in excellent condition for generations to come.”
Since beginning his second term, Trump, 79, has left an indelible mark on the Commander-in-Chief’s famous home.
The president has added cursive gold signage across the White House, embedded garish gold trim inside the Oval Office, and added statues of Founding Fathers to the Rose Garden he bulldozed into a patio.
Shortly after they were added to the Rose Garden patio, a White House official confused one of the statues, which depicts Alexander Hamilton, with Thomas Jefferson.
Perhaps the most egregious of his “alterations” to the White House, however, is his bulldozing of the building’s entire East Wing, all to make room for a $400 million vanity ballroom.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon rejected Justice Department lawyers’ claims that Trump’s ballroom is merely an “alteration” to the White House, saying that labeling the ballroom as such “takes some brazen interpretation of the laws of vocabulary.”
His makeovers don’t stop at 1600 Penn, however. Trump has also sought to make his mark on the historic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, plastering his name onto the building in an unofficial capacity.
The president announced that the “Trump Kennedy Center,” as he calls it, will be closed for two years for “renovations” following the nation’s 250th anniversary on July 4th. The closure will leave “approximately 75 to 175 of the Center’s 300 employees” out of work, according to CNN.
