President Donald Trump went on a massive Truth Social tantrum about his perpetually embattled White House ballroom, and as his one-time biographer revealed, his real motivations are much simpler than anything else he has tried to put forward.
On Friday morning, Trump’s ballroom received its latest and perhaps most debilitating legal blow after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that it could not proceed with construction without congressional approval. As The Daily Beast noted on Sunday, Trump responded with a massive tirade on Truth Social that was almost 500 words long, in which he called the new ruling “horrendous, politically motivated and unlawful,” and tried once again to insist that the structure served a “national security” purpose.
Michael Wolff, a longtime reporter and author who has extensively covered Trump in the past, argued in the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, “Inside Trump’s Head,” that arguments about national security and every other extra feature tacked onto the project are just attempts to cover the president’s real and much simpler motivation: he just really, really wants the ballroom.
“In fact, he just wants the ballroom and is trying to say, ‘Well, if there’s this and there’s this and there’s this, it’s not just the ballroom,’” Wolff explained. “But Trump just wants the ballroom.”
Wolff further touched on the other aspects of the construction project that have been used to add deeper value to the ballroom, including a new bunker and suite of medical facilities underneath it. The author argued, however, that Trump is simply “adding on these things as justifications for the ballroom.”
At the end of the day, Wolff explained, the ballroom is another extension of Trump’s love of big crowds, and his desire to command as much attention as possible. As with most things he is now forcing onto the nation’s capital, it is all about him, and nothing else.
“He wants the ballroom because he wants, you know, big audiences. Essentially what he’s creating is a venue. That’s what he wants. He likes big events. He likes big audiences. The bigger the better,” Wolff continued. “The more people, the more opportunities for Donald Trump to appear before an audience. So this is not about national security. This is about Donald Trump.”
He added: “I’m sure Trump already has the satisfaction of knowing that this has all gone too far, that he is already significantly ahead of any decision that is going to be made,” he said. “And now this goes, of course, to the Supreme Court. This is in the hands of Trump’s judges. And the Supreme Court is going to be, I think, pretty reluctant to make this decision.”