The editorial board of the Washington Post, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, expressed approval of President Donald Trump‘s “aggressive” move to tear down the White House‘s East Wing in order to erect a massive ballroom funded by private corporations — including Amazon.
“Strong leaders reject calcification,” the Washington Post editorial board said in the op-ed, titled “In defense of the White House ballroom,” published Saturday.
“Many see the rubble [of the East Wing] as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of law,” the Post’s editorial said. But others “see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.”
“In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible,” the Post editorial said. The piece claimed that privately, “many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and VIPs are forced to use porta-potties.”
Bezos, currently executive chairman of Amazon, bought the Washington Post in 2013 and owns it in his personal capacity. He has recently made several changes to the legendary paper, including overhauling the Post’s opinion section earlier this year to focus on “personal liberties and free markets” rather than “broad-based” issues. After Washington Post editorial opinion page editor David Shipley resigned following Bezos’ decision, the paper in June appointed Adam O’Neal, a former correspondent for the Economist and an opinion writer for the Wall Street Journal, as opinion editor.
Trump’s planned gold-gilded ballroom, to be built where the East Wing once stood, will cost an estimated $300 million. Amazon is one of the donors to the project, according to the White House.
The Post’s editorial acknowledged that “the fundraising for the ballroom creates problematic conflicts of interest,” but it did not identify Amazon as among the donors.
After raising those ethical issues without additional discussion, the Washington Post’s editorial board said in the piece that “Trump’s aggressive approach” is “justified.” The op-ed cited two examples: a yearslong delay in getting approvals for improving White House perimeter fencing after a 2014 incident in which a fence-jumper made his way inside the White House; and an even longer approval process for the erection of the “modest” Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial near the National Air and Space Museum.
Other corporate donors to Trump’s new ballroom include Comcast, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. Google also is listed as a donor; Alphabet, parent company of Google and YouTube, agreed to pay Trump $22 million as part of settling the president’s lawsuit alleging “censorship” over YouTube’s suspension of his account for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. According to court documents, Trump directed the $22 million to go toward the construction of the new White House ballroom.
In its Oct. 25 editorial, the Post said, “Preservationists express horror that Trump did not submit his plans to their scrutiny, but the truth is that this project would not have gotten done, certainly not during his term, if the president had gone through the traditional review process. The blueprints would have faced death by a thousand papercuts.”
“The White House cannot simply be a museum to the past,” the Post editorial concluded. “Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness. Strong leaders reject calcification. In that way, Trump’s undertaking is a shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere.”
Trump’s teardown of the East Wing included the demolition of the White House’s 42-seat movie theater, which FDR installed in 1942. Over the years, the theater had been home to President Barack Obama’s screenings with the casts and crews of “Lincoln” and “Selma”; Richard Nixon watching “Patton” the night before the Cambodia invasion; JFK’s second viewing of “From Russia With Love” the day before he was assassinated in Dallas; and Jimmy Carter’s screening of “Apocalypse Now” with Francis Ford Coppola before the movie’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, according to the New York Times.
Trump himself once watched “one of his favorite movies,” Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic “Sunset Boulevard,” in the East Wing theater, per the Times.
Pictured above: An excavator works to clear rubble after the East Wing of the White House was demolished on Oct. 23, 2025, in Washington, DC..
