White House Staff Largely Unbothered by East Wing Demolition Amid Government Shutdown

Most White House employees appear to care very little about the ongoing demolition of the White House East Wing, which is progressing mid-way through the current federal government shutdown.

“Honestly, it doesn’t affect me at all,” one White House aide told WIRED. Speaking on condition of anonymity, as they are not authorized to engage with the press, the source added that the demolition “hasn’t even crossed my mind,” and that they’ve “probably only heard a handful of people mention it at all.”

Former President Donald Trump is moving forward with a hundreds-of-millions-dollar privately funded new ballroom that will replace the current East Wing—an addition to the White House complex first built in 1902, before being expanded in 1942. When photos of the demolition were made public, they sparked public shock and a range of reactions from criticism to outrage, because the Trump administration never previously signaled that wrecking crews would be brought in for the ballroom project.

The White House East Wing has long served as the official workspace for first ladies and their staff, in addition to being the site of decades of major historic events.

Ostensibly, the East Wing is where First Lady Melania Trump’s office is meant to be located. Even though the first lady has chosen to live full-time in New York for the entirety of Trump’s second term, multiple teams of East Wing staff were forced out of the space weeks before cranes arrived to start work on Monday.

Per a second anonymous White House official, the Office of the First Lady will relocate into the main White House building itself. Other teams previously based in the East Wing—including the White House’s in-house team of calligraphers, a ceremonial role that still exists at the White House—along with the White House Military Office, the White House Visitors Office, and the Office of Legislative Affairs, are all moving to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street, the official confirmed.

A spokesperson for the first lady declined to comment on where Melania Trump will work when she visits Washington, D.C., or her perspective on the demolition of the space that hosted her widely noted 2018 display of 40 red Christmas trees. That same holiday season, when the Trumps took phone calls from children for the annual Santa hotline, President Trump asked a 7-year-old caller if they were “still a believer in Santa,” because at that age, he claimed belief is “marginal.”

A Trumpworld source familiar with the internal situation dismissed any idea that the demolition would cause tension with the first lady or friction among other staff.

“This is such a non-issue,” the source told WIRED, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House mood. “It hasn’t come up in a single conversation I’ve had with administration officials in the past several weeks.”

Trump has previously said the new ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building” and will be built separate from the existing White House. Demolition is currently scheduled to wrap up as early as this weekend.

The ballroom carries a current price tag of $300 million, which is $100 million higher than the original estimated cost—and the final total could climb even more, depending on which of two final design renderings Trump selects. The project is unprecedented for its complete bypassing of two required steps: congressionally approved funding, and sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, an executive branch agency. Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary who also chairs the commission overseeing the new ballroom, has argued that the White House only needs approval for new construction, not demolition work. Corporations the White House says are contributing funding to the project include Amazon, Apple, Coinbase, Comcast, Google, Meta, and Palantir. Individual donors include the family of Treasury Secretary Howard Lutick and the Winklevoss twins.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the demolition, or details about how the ballroom funding would be structured, such whether donations would be paid up front or in installments.

When asked if White House staff were excited about the new ballroom, the first aide told WIRED that no one is particularly invested.

“There’s just so much other stuff going on,” they said.