President Donald Trump put the kibosh on a suggestion that he should build a ‘big, beautiful briefing room’ alongside the big, beautiful ballroom he’s planning as part of the White House’s East Wing renovation.
Trump hosted a raucous press conference Monday morning in the White House briefing room and remarked several times about the size of the crowd.
Every seat in the room was filled and reporters were shoved together along the aisles and stacked together deep into the back of the room.
Always a connoisseur of crowd sizes, Trump pointed this out when he entered the briefing room.
‘I think we need a ballroom,’ the president exclaimed.
Brian Glenn, the White House correspondent for Real America’s Voice, who dates GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, asked the president, ‘could we build a big, beautiful briefing room’ that would give the press access to ‘more seats.’
‘I don’t want you to be comfortable,’ Trump cracked. ‘I don’t want to make life comfortable.’
President Donald Trump headlined a press briefing about Washington, D.C. Monday morning that easily attracted more than 100 journalists
‘I don’t want you to be comfortable,’ President Donald Trump said when Real America’s Voice’s Brian Glenn suggested he build the press a ‘big, beautiful briefing room’
Next month, workers at the White House will break ground on a $200 million project to add a White House ballroom to the East Wing – where first ladies, including Melania Trump, have historically had their offices.
Trump has said he will finance the project himself – or donors will chip in – so that American taxpayers don’t pick up the tab.
The ballroom could be used to host press conferences – though Trump has also said he added patio stone to the Rose Garden so that venue could be used for such occasions.
Earlier this month he noted how when he’d have a press conference in the Rose Garden, which used to feature a rectangular section of grass, ‘you’d sink into the mud,’ the president complained.
Trump touted the ‘great reviews’ of the more patio-like Rose Garden.
‘And because it’s very white it’s going to reflect the heat and it’s not going to be very hot,’ he said.
President Trump said the crowded press briefing room is yet another reason why his ballroom project should come to fruition. White House workers are expected to break ground on the $200 million ballroom next month
The president argued that the grass in the middle of the White House Rose Garden needed to be covered in stone so that it could be used for press conferences, though he opted to use the traditional briefing room when making an announcement Monday
Last week Trump hinted that there could be more renovations to come – as he walked on the roof of the White House briefing room.
The vantage point also allowed him to see the new Rose Garden stones from a higher angle.
He also said he was planning to build ‘something beautiful’ and made a dome-like gesture with his hands, but didn’t share additional details yet.
