“That's Arlington Memorial Bridge,” he said. “And at the end of it, you have a circle that was built 150 years ago. You have two columns on one side, two columns on the other, yet in the middle, just a circle. And everyone in the past had said something was supposed to be built there. But a thing called the Civil War interfered. That's a good reason.”
Trump showed off 3-D models of the project, in three sizes: “small, medium and large,” he said.
He did not offer any further details on the cost or who would pay for it − nor what permits it might require or when it would be built. The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the proposed arch.
Trump then went on to name presidents who had undertaken various projects in the White house: “James Monroe, who added the South Portico, to Andrew Jackson, who added the North Portico, to Theodore Roosevelt, who added the West Wing,” he said. “And Harry Truman, who added the Truman Balcony.”
Trump, whose background is in real estate, has made several changes in the White House, including replacing the Rose Garden lawn with a paved patio and gilding the Oval Office.
“It's so relaxing for me. Real estate is relaxing,” he told his guests at the East Room. “For a lot of people, real estate is a very trying business. I've always liked it. I've always done well with it.”
Trump promised the donors that the ballroom would be done with "exquisite" taste.
"I consider myself an important designer because they come in with things that they may be good designers, but boy, the things they can recommend are horrible," he said.
Donors at the dinner were representatives of some of America’s biggest corporations, including Lockheed Martin, Palantir, Alphabet’s Google, Meta and Amazon, a White House official told USA TODAY.
For years, Trump has been pushing for a ballroom in the White House that would accommodate large gatherings, such as state dinners. He has lamented the fact that many of the fancy affairs in the past were held in tents.
He even pitched the idea of building a ballroom to two former presidents: Barack Obama and Joe Biden, telling them he’d build it and pay for it himself.
There were no takers.
Ultimately, when he got a chance to occupy the White House for a second time, on Feb. 6 he announced his intention to build a “beautiful” ballroom, two weeks after taking office.
He said he’d pay for it himself.
But plans evolved over the months, and the White House said the $250 million project would be financed by private donors and the president.
Trump said that the ballroom project had been "fully financed" and that there was even some "money left over" for his next project.
"We'll use that probably maybe for the arc, or something else that will come."
