President Donald Trump revealed the next target for his White House renovation scheme in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night: the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Showing host Laura Ingraham a mock-up of his renovations which would see him paint the 137-year-old building stark white, Trump said, “Look at that, how beautiful that is.”
Ingraham, who noted that she worked in the building during the Reagan administration, responded, “Are you not worried it’s like… a big white blob?”
“No, what it does is it brings out the detail,” Trump retorted, as Ingraham appeared to cringe at the mock-up.
The president went on to claim that when the building was built in 1888, people considered it a “really ugly” building, but he looked at it and saw the potential.
“They used greystone, grey is for funerals, look at it now, how beautiful that is,” Trump continued.
When asked by Ingraham when the renovation might be scheduled for, the president clarified that he wasn’t even sure if the renovations would be moving ahead.
“I don’t even know if I’m going to do it yet, I’m getting costs, I’m getting bids right now from painters, and we’ll see. It would be a great addition to Washington,” he replied.
The EEOB was built in 1888 and was formerly known as the State, War and Navy Department building. Built in French Second Empire style, it would later influence Charles Addams when he was designing the Addams Family mansion in his iconic cartoon.
If the renovation goes ahead, it would join other Trump 2.0 projects, including the complete demolition of the East Wing of the White House in order to build a $300 million ballroom and the radically remodeled Lincoln Bathroom, which is now made entirely of marble.
The president has received considerable backlash over the renovations, including questions surrounding the donors to his massive ballroom project.
During their interview, the president showed Ingraham some of the changes he has made to the White House during the first ten months of his second term, which include adding a Presidential Walk of Fame to the White House colonnade.
When asked by Ingraham who thought of the Walk of Fame, which features portraits of every president set in gilded frames—save for President Joe Biden, who is represented by a photo of an autopen he used during his presidency—Trump explained that it was all him.
“Everything is my idea, sadly,” he told Ingraham.
