"On Saturday night, May 23rd, a shooter once again sought to murder the President, his family, and his staff at the historic White House complex."

"We submit this urgent filing to update the Court on a second attempted assassination on the President within a single month. Last night, shortly after 6:00 p.m., an armed assassin approached a White House security checkpoint near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, professionally pulled a high caliber gun from a bag, and opened fire in the exact direction of the White House. Brave Secret Service officers returned fire. The gunman was killed...."

From the Notice of Supplemental Authority in Support of the Government’s Motion for an Indicative Ruling Dissolving the Court’s Injunction, filed yesterday in National Trust for Historic Preservation v. National Park Service, the case about the White House ballroom, posted by Trump at Truth Social this morning.

"What a welcome and much-needed reminder of a President who valued art, beauty, and decency. A glaring contrast to the garish, self-serving chaos of the current one."

Says one commenter at the NYT article "The Audacity of Art at the Obama Presidential Center/Barack and Michelle Obama commissioned 30 artists to create work for their campus, which starts visitor previews next week on the South Side of Chicago."

That's a gift link so you can see the photos of the artwork inside the building, which I think is quite good, and so you can gaze at the "View from the Sky Room" photograph that shows a view from the building, looking out through one of the letters of the text from an Obama speech that you can attempt to read if you stand on the ground and gaze upward at the building.

The view from the Sky Room is garish chaos, but the chaos seems designed to give ordinary citizens a place to play, that is, it's not trying to look good, it's trying to offer what can be used. Included in the play equipment is an N.B.A.-size basketball court and a "sledding hill." We'll see how much freewheeling tomfoolery unfolds in this space. The message is casual playfulness for the people, and it is in distinct contrast to the design ideas Trump has been imposing on the White House and elsewhere. His message is grandeur and elegance.

"The ballroom is, to the confusion of many, a top priority for Trump. Indeed, it has been one since long before he launched himself into politics."

"Way back in 2010, Trump called David Axelrod, at the time a senior adviser to President Obama, and offered to build a ballroom for the White House. The offer was not accepted. Barely two weeks into his second term, Trump began talking up his ballroom dream once again. Within months, he had demolished the East Wing of the White House and construction was set to begin...."

I'm reading "What Does the Correspondents Dinner Have to Do With Trump’s Ballroom Project? The case may test just how far national security deference by the courts to the executive can stretch" (Lawfare).

"On this occasion, I cannot help noticing the readjustments to the East Wing, Mr. President..."

"And I'm sorry to say that we British of course made our own small attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814."

It's funny now.

Who will be around in 2213 to joke about the destruction of the World Trade Center?

"This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press. And in a certain way it did..."

"I saw a room that was totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful — a very beautiful thing to see."

Said President Trump, in an impromptu press conference at the White House, 2 hours after the incident at the Correspondents' Dinner. 

I hope that shared experience brings people together. Perhaps there will be a reset and love will steer the stars: "In light of this evening's events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts to resolving our differences peacefully. We have to resolve our differences. You had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals, and progressives in that room — a big crowd, record-setting crowd. There was a tremendous amount of love and coming together." Come together, right now, over me.

Trump saw the opportunity to promote his ballroom: "We looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight. It's not a particularly secure building. I didn't want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we're planning at the White House. It's actually a larger room and it's much more secure. It's got drone-proof and bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom."

Trump framed the incident as an assassination attempt: "This is not the first time in the past couple of years that our republic has been attacked by a would-be assassin. In Butler, Pennsylvania, less than two years ago — you all know that story. And in Palm Beach, Florida, a few months after that, we came close again. We had some great work done by law enforcement."

Trump expressed pride in himself as the target of multiple assassination attempts. Asked "Why do you think this keeps happening to you?," he said "I've studied assassinations. The most impactful people, the people that do the most, are the ones they go after. Abraham Lincoln, the big names. I hate to say I'm honored by that, but we've done a lot. We've changed this country. There are a lot of people that are not happy about that."

"But Trump’s urge is toward gigantism, not grace. This is as true about his ballroom... as it is about the proposed arch."

"It is, simply, un-American. It is even, in its derivative way, un-French, since the Parisian instances are, at least, right-sized for their place and their purpose. If it were ever to be built, future generations would dream of its demolition. Its injury to the democratic spirit is too large to contemplate, and would be too hard to look past, even from a distance."

Writes Adam Gopnik, in "Donald Trump’s Triumphal Arch and the Architecture of Autocracy/When asked by a reporter whom the arch would be for, Trump said, 'Me'" (The New Yorker).

Is gigantism un-American?

"A federal appeals court on Friday allowed construction to continue on President Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom until June, just a day after a federal judge halted progress."

NBC News reports.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post has just come out with an "analysis" of the quantity of Trump's "fixation" on building the ballroom: "Trump’s fixation on White House ballroom is increasing, Post analysis finds/The president has publicly highlighted his ballroom project on roughly a third of the days this year."

That's a gift link, so you can check to see how WaPo measured the mind of Trump. 

"A federal judge set new limits on President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, saying construction could proceed only on an underground portion of the project deemed necessary by the military..."

"... and not on the 90,000-square-foot aboveground addition that Trump has eyed to entertain VIP guests. 'National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity,' U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote Thursday. He said the Trump administration could also take steps to secure the construction site to make it safe for people on the White House grounds...."

WaPo reports.

"A federal judge ordered on Tuesday that construction be halted on President Trump’s proposed White House ballroom... saying work must come to a stop until the project receives a go-ahead from Congress."

The NYT reports.

In a 35-page opinion, Judge Leon wrote that Mr. Trump likely did not have the authority to act without consulting Congress to replace entire sections of the White House — changes that could endure for generations.

We're told there are 19 exclamation points in the opinion.

From Trump's response at Truth Social:

[A]ll I am doing is fixing, cleaning, running, and “sprucing up” a terribly maintained, for many years, Building, but a Building of potentially great importance. Yet, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Radical Left Group of Lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005, is not suing the Federal Reserve for a Building which has been decimated and destroyed, inside and out, by an incompetent and possibly corrupt Fed Chairman.

"President Trump is the best builder and developer in the entire world, and the American people can rest well knowing that this project is in his hands."

Said a White House spokesman, quoted in "Trump’s Ballroom Design Has Barely Been Scrutinized/Architects Say It Shows" (NYT)(gift link because there are some detailed graphics).

Also quoted is Carol Quillen, the president and chief executive of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is suing over the ballroom. She says: "Even if we are slow and we make mistakes and we fight, that process has meaning to us."

Have you ever paused to contemplate the meaningfulness of red tape? Maybe the deliberation and drawn-out procedure is subtly, secretly the very best part of what we do together, the very heart of democracy. 

"It makes me happy. When I hear those pile drivers — my wife doesn't love it — but I love it. I love the sound of concrete. I love the sound of pile drivers."

PETER DOOCY: "When they're doing the construction, does it ever wake you up?"

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “It makes me happy...my wife doesn't love it."

"I love the sound of concrete, I love the sound of pile drivers." || @pdoocy pic.twitter.com/4MDWmwdTCw

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 20, 2026

"Corinthian is the highest order, and that’s what our other two branches of government have."

"Why the White House didn’t originally use them, at least on the north front, which is considered the front door, is beyond me."

Said Rodney Mims Cook Jr., "the Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, a federal panel charged with advising the president on design matters, said in an interview last week," quoted in "Appointee wants to replace White House columns with the ones Trump prefers/The head of a federal arts commission is proposing the more ornate Corinthian style for the nearly 200-year-old columns at the building’s front entrance" (WaPo)(gift link, so you can see the drawings showing the number and location of the longstanding Ionic columns and the Corinthian columns to be built in the new East Wing).

We're told that Trump prefers Corinthian columns but also that, according to a White House spokesperson, "there are no plans to change the existing Ionic columns outside the White House." It's just Cook spreading the alarm about redoing the scroll-y tops into those leafy tops.

Do you have any preference with regard to the tops of Greek columns? Do you care what it meant to the Greeks or even understand the notion of "the highest order"?

"A federal judge on Thursday declined to halt construction of the ballroom President Trump plans to build over the demolished East Wing of the White House..."

"... concluding that the lawsuit, as filed, focused on the wrong questions about the president’s authority....  Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court in Washington wrote that the group that had filed the lawsuit could amend the claim to focus more squarely on the president’s power to make sweeping changes to the building without input from Congress.... The National Trust for Historic Preservation... argued that left unchecked, Mr. Trump could redevelop the White House beyond recognition, using funds from entities seeking access or a business edge. The argument appeared to resonate with Judge Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush.... Asked to list any other time a president had marshaled private funds to carry out a significant White House renovation without approval from Congress, Mr. Roth cited the installation of a swimming pool by President Gerald Ford and the construction of a tennis pavilion during Mr. Trump’s first term. 'The ’77 Gerald Ford swimming pool? You compare that to tearing down and building a new East Wing?' Judge Leon replied. 'C’mon, be serious.'..."

The NYT reports.

A historian weighs in The chief executive of Ish Entertainment uses the work of a historian to comment on the similarity between the U.S. today and France just before the Revolution.

An excerpt from "The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV" by Michael Hirschorn in the NYT. 

The historian Robert Darnton described an uncannily similar moment in “The Revolutionary Temper: Paris 1748-1789,” his brilliant 2023 account of the decades leading up to the French Revolution. The preconditions were all there: suffocating top-down control of the media, rapid technological change, let-them-eat-cake behavior among the courtier class, weaponized religious bigotry, mansions with hideously de trop ballrooms. OK, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not quite Voltaire. But there was a pedophilia scandal involving Louis XV: Public obsession with the king’s many mistresses helped give rise to so-called libelles, cheaply printed, semi-factual pamphlets that speculated on, among other matters, the king’s supposed never-ending supply of teenage girls. It would have fit right in on TikTok. Reverence turned to mockery; mockery begot contempt; and then. …

Libelles ≈ social media. 

REVISION: The original headline was "A historian weighs in on the similarity between the U.S. today and France just before the Revolution," but the historian didn't comment on the similarity. The author of the article Michael Hirschorn, identified at the link as "the chief executive of Ish Entertainment," is the one who picked things out of the history and made the comparison. Thanks to commenter Narr for drawing attention to this.

"The White House has explained the East Wing’s demolition as 'renovation,' and the necessary prelude to a multimillion-dollar ballroom."

"This is the architectural equivalent of a celebrity-style makeover: a redo to admire as a luxury commodity, an old building rejuvenated, history erased.... Of course, when celebrities go under the knife, we never see the surgery. Nor do we see the blood, bruising or scars. These aspects just get disappeared, before the eventual 'reveal' of the transformation. This is why the honesty discourse around surgery is complicated: Think of it as a film with some segments edited out, making the transition seem magical, and free of any gruesome in-between stages.... The Treasury Department has reportedly prohibited any further photos of the East Wing’s demolition site — we must not see the patient on the operating table...."

I'm reading Rhonda Garelick's "Americans Love a Makeover, as Long as It’s Invisible/The gutting of the East Wing of the White House and our national preoccupation with 'renovation'" (NYT).

AFTERTHOUGHT: Taking Garelick's analogy very seriously, I could believe that Trump's buildings are, for him, the equivalent of a woman's body and face.

There has alway been a womanly aspect to Trump, and I think that is one of the (many) things that trouble those of us who have focused on his weirdness over the years. A transwoman is easier to fathom. Rather that to be focused on his own body and face, he has pushed this awareness out to the buildings that surround him. He's deeply invested in extreme achievement in the field of aesthetics — he's said "I'm a very aesthetic person" — and he may be too much like those actresses who overindulge in plastic surgery as they experience their time running low.

If I am right, it's not just a matter of the "gruesome in-between stages" of the reconstruction work. It's also the final result. Why does the NYT include that photo of Kristen Chenowith?

"Mr. Trump is aware of the criticism that his ballroom plans are too large."

"He told a group of donors to the project last month that he didn’t want the new ballroom to 'dwarf anything.' But at the same event, in discussing related plans to construct a Triumphal Arch, Mr. Trump showed small, medium and large options. 'I happen to think the large looks by far the best,' he said.... 'We started with a much smaller building, and then I realized, we have the land, let’s do it right,' Mr. Trump said recently to donor... Speaking of the design plans for the new ballroom, Mr. Trump has said that he likes to see different proposals, but that he ultimately has the final say. 'I consider myself an important designer,' Mr. Trump has said."

From "Inside Trump’s Push to Make the White House Ballroom as Big as Possible/President Trump’s ever-growing vision has caused tension with contractors. His architect has taken a step back as the president personally manages the project" (NYT).

"... a conflict between architectural norms and Trump’s grandiose aesthetic, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations."

I'm trying to read this WaPo article, "Trump wants a bigger White House ballroom. His architect disagrees/The president and James McCrery had argued in recent weeks over the project’s size, with Trump pushing him to expand the ballroom" (free link).

I wonder who the 4 sources are and how intensely Trump and the architect have disagreed. Is it a friendly back-and-forth about proportion and aesthetics or is there raging and threatening to stomp off and tell all?

And I wonder what size the architect thinks is right. We're told Trump wants a 90,000-square-foot building but not what the architect has been arguing for. We are told there's a "general architectural rule" that an addition shouldn't "overshadow" the main building and the executive mansion is 55,000 square feet. But what's the specific position the architect is taking? 90 is so huge, but what is the proposed ensmallment?

Fault me if you like, but I went over to Grok and prompted: "Assume I want to write a fancy-schmancy essay interweaving the Trump and the architect story with ideas from the Ibsen play 'The Master Builder.' Help me out!"

From Grok's answer (which spoils the ending of the play):

The Property Brothers take on the White House.

"I’m not going to be distracted by, ‘Oh, does the guy have a big f–king hammer!?’ What about those babies!?"

"This guy wants to create a ballroom for his rich friends while completely turning a blind eye to the fact that babies are going to starve when the SNAP benefits end in just hours from now. Come on."

Said Kamala Harris, quoted in "Kamala Harris loses it, goes on expletive-laden rant about Trump’s donation-funded ballroom" (NY Post).

Eh. I don't believe she "lost it." She just delivered a mundane talking point. She got the memo: It's bad for Trump to spend a lot of money, even donated money, on the ballroom when the shutdown is about to dry up SNAP payments. 

I don't think peppering your speech with "fucking" means anything anymore... although... what about the babies?!! 

By the way, what percentage of those fed by SNAP are babies? I looked it up and got the answer 4.4%. Children of all ages make up 38.9%.

"It is especially amusing to hear progressives, the principal creators of the watery Caesarism of today’s presidency, sorrowfully describing Trump’s ballroom..."

"... as discordant with the White House’s proper modesty. They should worry less about the president’s residential immodesty and more about his anti-constitutional immodesty.

Writes George Will, in "The choreographed fakery of American politics: East Wing edition/Trump’s residential immodesty is nothing compared with his anti-constitutional immodesty" (WaPo).

I wondered if anyone had written "watery Caesarism" before. It sounds like a bad salad. A real salad, not a word salad. Don't put the dressing on until you're about to eat it. Anyway, "watery Caesarism" did turn up on a few old web pages, but — are you surprised? — they're all written by George Will!

1992: "Trouble is, most presidents are mediocre.