Doddering Trump’s ballroom deflection from midterms isn’t fooling anyone

Obama 2010: "I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like they did, like I did last night. I'm sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons."Bush 2006: "I'm obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election, and as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility."Donald Trump 2026: “The kitchen ... is going to be top of the line”Eight years ago, Donald Trump spoke to a packed house in the White House’s East Room to reflect on midterm election results that had seen his party gain Senate seats even as Democrats stormed back into control of the House of Representatives.It was a more or less ordinary way for a president to engage after taking the drubbing that all but two modern American commanders in chief have had to endure at their four-year term’s halfway point. At the time, Trump highlighted the bright spots: Republicans had gained seats in the Senate. The GOP won a majority of the nation’s 50 governorships. And House Republicans, he said, had “dramatically outperformed historical precedents and overcome a historic number of retirements” to keep their losses far below the 63-seat “shellacking” that Barack Obama had endured nearly a decade ago.US President Donald Trump speaks at the construction site of the East Wing ballroom at the White House less than a day after Democrats won controlling majorities the House and Senate (AFP/Getty)Following the remarks to reporters, he held what turned into a marathon, free-for-all of a press conference that lasted just under 90 minutes and saw him take questions from a broad range of journalists.The whole thing was normal, traditional — even presidential — despite Trump taking some swipes at Republicans who’d lost re-election, blaming some of them for not embracing him aggressively enough.What a difference eight years can make in Trump life.Two years into his second term, Trump on Wednesday exhibited none of the self-reflection or understanding of history that his cross-party predecessors Obama or George W. Bush did when they addressed their own dismal midterm election results.Instead, what he really wanted to do was celebrate the publicly unpopular ballroom that for the last year has risen towards the Washington, D.C. horizon — on the site of the old White House East Wing he had demolished without consulting anyone — as a real-life monument to the obsessive megalomaniac who is fixated still on the very vanity projects that voters punished him and his party for the night before.Without warning, Trump summoned the White House press pool to the site of his ballroom Wednesday, where a single steel I-beam was waiting to be hoisted.It was a topping-out ceremony, a construction tradition to celebrate the completion of a new building’s steel framing. Rather than address what happened to his party’s House and Senate majorities and the historic and resounding defeat they’d endured at the hands of Democrats — and likely many thousands of Republicans — Trump wanted to talk about kitchens and columns and panes of reinforced glass.He talked about the “glass tube” that will connect the White House’s East Room to the ballroom itself when the entire structure is finished.Trump signs his name and the word “love” to the last steel bam being placed for his unpopular ballroom (Getty)He bragged — for the umpteenth time — about the helipad that he had to have built on the South Lawn to enable a new fleet of Marine One helicopters to land without destroying the grass there. And he again complained about a lawsuit that is blocking him from renovating a golf course along the Potomac River that he called “trash island.”For a full 15 minutes, Trump continued to wax on about his various projects in Washington — the fountains, the removal of homeless encampments, the restaurants he claimed to have enticed back into the city with gratuitous use of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement on roving crime patrols. It was a surprisingly oblivious reaction to the historic thrashing he and his party took on Wednesday which saw Democrats win Senate seats and governorships in places that haven’t supported a Democrat in decades, and in one case nearly a full century. “You know, when I get criticized, like, ‘Why are you working on the White House?’ I'm doing it because the White House is the ultimate symbol of America, and it's got to be pristine. It's got to be perfect. And if you take a look at it, that's what it is right now,” he said.Twenty minutes into the madcap scene, Trump finally got around to interacting with the press corps he’d summoned for the occasion. Immediately, he was asked about comments made in a post on X by Vice President JD Vance, who blamed the historic drubbing of his party on the unpopular war Trump started with Iran nine months ago. In exit polls, voters overwhelmingly cited concerns with Trump’s failure to address the cost of living, which he had exacerbated with the unprovoked war. The president seemed to acknowledge the detrimental effect his decision had on the price Americans pay to fill their vehicles, telling reporters Vance’s assessment was “largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little.”“But at the same time, if I had it to do again, I'd have to do it again because long term, it's the only answer,” he said.And with that, he went back to the subject of the ballroom, telling reporters to “envision chandeliers” and “envision marble floors” where they were all standing. “This will be the most beautiful building,” he said.