A handout rendering of the interior of a $200 million ballroom in the East Wing of the White House that was announced by the Trump administration on July 31, 2025. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the expansion will be paid for by President Trump and unnamed donors.

President Donald Trump’s desire to build a ballroom in the White House predates his first presidency - which began almost a decade ago- and spans three presidencies.

But concrete plans remained elusive - until July.

After months of teasing ideas for a “new, big, beautiful” ballroom, like the one in Mar-a-Lago, his oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump was ready with schematics.

On July 31, seven months into Trump’s second term as president, the White House put out an announcement, with renderings of a gold-accented lavish ballroom.

It also went on to detail the cost of construction and when it would be completed. But as Americans found out on Oct. 20 when bulldozers began chewing up the East Wing, there were gaps in the details.

Here are five things that changed or evolved as the White House ballroom plan got underway on financing;, size, cost, location and approvals.

1. Financing: From 'compliments of a man known as Donald J. Trump’ to additional ‘patriot donors’

On Feb. 6, as Trump stood before a crowd of elected officials, guests and children who had assembled beneath the crystal chandeliers in the East Room to watch him sign an executive order seeking to bar transgender women and girls from participating in women's sports, he said he was reminded of an old idea.

“This room is packed,” he said, before telling the audience that he’d offered to build a ballroom during both the Obama and Biden presidencies for about $100 million. It would have been a donation from him.

“This was going to be the reception room,” he said referring to his idea for a revamped East Room that would have served as the entrance to the ballroom he proposed. He has also referred to the space as a potential “cocktail area.”

At just under 3,000 square feet, the East Room is the biggest of the State Rooms and the only one that runs the entire width of the executive mansion.

On June 6, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had “inspected the site of the new Ballroom that will be built, compliments of a man known as Donald J. Trump, at the White House.”

But in July, the White House announcement noted that a few others had joined the cause.

“President Trump, and other patriot donors, have generously committed to donating the funds necessary” for the new addition, it said.

The donors included American corporations with business before the U.S. government including Palantir, Lockheed Martin and Meta.

2. Seating capacity: A 90,000-square-foot ballroom seating 650… 900…999 people?

In its July announcement, the White House said ballroom will be a “much-needed and exquisite addition” of approximately 90,000 total square feet.

It said the “carefully crafted space” would have a seated capacity of 650 people — “a significant increase” from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House, it said.

In September, Trump told NBC News in an interview that the new ballroom would be larger than first described, with a capacity of 900 people.

“We’re making it a little bigger. It will be top of the line, as good as it can get anywhere in the world,” he told NBC News.

With that, the seating capacity had gone up by 40%.

By October, Trump had begun saying the venue would accommodate 999 people, like he did during a dinner to thank donors to the ballroom on Oct.15.

“We're going to build a room that's going to be able to hold literally the inauguration if we want,” he said.

3. Cost: White House ballroom cost jumps 50% in three months

The old estimate of $100 million to build the ballroom had doubled by the time the July announcement came. Afterall, it had been a decade since Trump had first proposed it.

In the July announcement, the White House said Trump, and other donors had “generously committed to donating the funds necessary to build this approximately $200 million dollar structure.”

Trump, who has often touted his experience as a real estate developer who is good at building things "on budget and on time” had, by September, begun saying it would cost $250 million.

Then, on Oct. 21, after the East Wing demolition was well underway, Trump said the cost of the ballroom would be $300 million.

He said the “expensive, beautiful building” would cost “about $300 million.”

“It's set to do many, many things including meetings of foreign leaders, including the honoring of foreign leaders,” he said.

4. Location: East Wing demolition and accusations of a lack of transparency

When the White House first released plans for the ballroom July 31, Trump told reporters the 90,000-square-foot addition would be “built over on the east side and it will be beautiful.”

“It'll have views of the Washington Monument. It won't interfere with the current building,” he said. “It'll be near it but not touching it and pay total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of.”

Less than three months later, bulldozers had removed the entire East Wing of the White House. The construction was no longer "near" the part of the building that historically housed the first lady’s offices − as Trump had initially described the project.

While the White House announcement in July did say “the site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits,” it made no mention of any demolition plans.

Soon after the demolition, Trump rejected accusations that he had not been transparent over the extent of the works, telling reporters on Oct. 22: "I think we've been more transparent than anyone's ever been."

Asked why the facade had been demolished after the president had said the ballroom construction would not touch the East Wing, a White House official said the scope and size of the project was “always subject to vary” as the “process developed.”

Trump told reporters on Oct. 22 that the decision to tear down the entire structure was made after "tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world"

"In order to do it properly we had to take down the existing structure," Trump said.

5. Approvals: Permits for demolition of East Wing not needed, says White House

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was quoted in the July announcement saying the executive office was “fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House."

Yet, no permissions were sought for the demolition of the East Wing from the National Capital Planning Commission, which provides building and zoning advice to Washington, DC, and approves various federal construction plans.

The action drew outrage from preservationists and critics, including former first lady Hillary Clinton, who said Trump was "destroying" the White House.

Asked for a response, a White House official told USA TODAY that the National Capital Planning Commission does not have jurisdiction over demolition, only construction. Therefore, the official said, approval from the NCPC was not required or needed for demolition.

Carol Quillen, the president of National Trust for Preservation, said in a letter to the National Capital Planning Commission, the National Park Service and the Commission of Fine Arts that it was concerned about the size of the building addition.

The 90,000 square feet of new construction “will overwhelm the White House itself,” which is 55,000 square feet, Quillen wrote, adding: “(The addition) may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings.”

The White House has said it would submit plans for the construction to NCPC "soon."

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 5 ways the White House ballroom plans changed, sometimes dramatically

Reporting by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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