WASHINGTON — Construction workers ripped the face off the East Wing on Monday as construction of President Donald Trump’s $250 million (or so he estimates) ballroom entered its next phase.

By late afternoon, reporters hanging out in a park near the Treasury Department could see a glimpse of the renovation in progress as the long arm of a track excavator reached up and tore the walls clean off the building. Work crews wandered around as detritus — window panes, building blocks and wires — piled up.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the White House, Trump was meeting with a collegiate baseball championship team. “You know, we’re building right behind us, we’re building a ballroom,” he told them.

“Right on the other side, you have a lot of construction going on,” he said, “which you might he

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