Trump Tower, the Trump Hotel, the Trump golf course: it is well known that the President of the United States likes to put his name on the places and buildings he owns. But will the ballroom currently being built in the White House instead of the east wing of the presidential residence be added to this list? On Friday afternoon, October 24, when leaving Washington for his tour of Asia, the American president assured that this would not be the case.
“I have no intention of giving him my name,” Donald Trump told reporters, according to comments reported by ABC. According to the president, the various articles that report such a desire are just “fake news.”
“I’ll probably call it ‘the presidential ballroom’ or something like that,” Trump added. “We haven’t thought of a name yet.”
A triumphal arch after a ballroom?
Before this denial, sources cited by ABC had explained that some members of the US administration called the room under construction “President Donald J. Trump’s ballroom.” This name also appeared at the top of the document that included the names of all the donors who financed the project and which had been sent by the White House.
Strongly criticized by Democrats, who accuse Donald Trump of not respecting the presidential residence, the ballroom project, with an area of 8,000 m², is estimated at around 300 million dollars (about 258 million euros). According to a White House source, $350 million has been raised for the ballroom to date.
The surplus of $50 million could be used for another project that is of particular interest to the American president: the construction of a triumphal arch in Washington. Last week, Donald Trump presented plans for this arch on the sidelines of a dinner in the presence of billionaires who helped finance the White House ballroom. Without specifying whether or not it would be called “Trump’s triumphal arch.”
Source: BFM TV
