Trump’s failing renovation projects are a disaster for America

The next US President is going to inherit one heck of a mess, with the list of things that will need cleaning up getting seemingly longer by the day. But amid the urgent need to try to rebuild alliances, resupply the nation’s dwindling weapons stockpile and address unresolved issues with Iran, Venezuela and even Denmark, Donald Trump’s successor is staring down a series of nightmares on the White House’s own doorstep. Last week, former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton became the latest high-profile figure to sound the alarm over the President’s orgy of reconstruction, saying that she is “making a list” of Trump projects that his successor will need to address. Shorts Clinton’s comments came after a federal appeals court ruled that Trump’s demolition of the historic East Wing of the White House was illegal, leaving the future of his $400m (£296m) vainglorious “ballroom” project up in the air. In a 2-1 ruling, appeals court judges ordered that the construction must be halted, because the President didn’t secure Congressional authorisation to rip down the old East Wing, built in 1902. Even Trump admits that the complex now being constructed where the East Wing used to stand is not really a ballroom. The ballroom “is a shield”, he conceded earlier this year, protecting a top secret, six-storey underground military bunker. Construction is still taking place, but only because the court put its own ruling on hold for a fortnight to allow the White House to file an appeal. Trump called the decision “horrendous, politically motivated” and “totally wrong” and indicated that he fully intends to seek redress at the hands of the Supreme Court. Construction work is continuing on the East Wing ballroom, as well as on a new helipad on the White House’s South Lawn (Photo: Kevin Carter/Getty) But he might not get it, leaving question marks over the giant building site in the President’s backyard. There are plenty of other projects that may also remain incomplete by midday on 20 January 2029, the moment Trump is constitutionally required to depart from the Oval Office. In “Regime Change”, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan claimed that as much as 70 per cent of Trump’s time is currently being devoted to his various renovation and legacy building projects. Meanwhile, his war with Iran has plunged the world into chaos, dragging up the cost of living for Americans just months before the midterm elections. Ground has been broken for Trump’s controversial “Arc de Trump”, loosely modelled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, only much larger and more gilded. Heavy equipment arrived on the site back in May, even as Democrats in Congress and several veterans’ groups insisted they would try to halt the project. The Reflecting Pool is also likely to be a nagging problem for the next US president, whoever that is. A National Park Service employee cleaning algae off the bottom of the newly repainted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The pool has become a symbol of the problems besetting Trump’s second term (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty) While Trump won’t acknowledge the scale of the botched renovation job – blaming “vandals” despite his own justice department dropping their cases – it’s likely the pool will either be out of commission for lengthy repairs or will require fresh attention over the coming years. Ironically, Trump’s efforts to bulldoze through rules and regulations is, if anything, slowing his building spree down, and making the reality of half-built projects dotting the US capital increasingly realistic. Does Trump’s successor then cancel the projects, push ahead with them, or try to find their own off-ramp to the mess they have inherited? “The next president’s going to have a big decision,” said Clinton, in an interview with journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher. “What do you do with a half-finished ballroom? We don’t really know what’s going on underneath it; I don’t know what they’re doing down there, so you’d have to figure that out.” She added: “You’ll probably have to take down the Arch, which he is determined to put up, which I think is just a terrible idea. I think we’ll have to worry about the Reflecting Pool, because it’s not going to be fixed by the time he leaves. Assuming he leaves,” she added. Clinton wasn’t done. “This is a man whose mind apparently goes to ‘Where can I add more gold?’ as opposed to ‘How do I get out of Iran without looking like the loser that I am?’” she said. Trump holding a model of his arch monument during a ballroom dinner at the White House (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) White House spokesman Davis Ingle hit back, saying that “Hillary Clinton never had the opportunity to decorate the Oval Office as president because she suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of President Trump, which she has never recovered from”. Their shared animosity aside, Clinton clearly has a point. Whoever next sits in the Oval Office – Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former Vice President Kamala Harris or one of the many other contenders for the throne – they are going to face multiple steaming piles of disaster to clean up. Clinton’s “to do” list is only going to get longer. Trump will walk away in two-and-a-half years, likely leaving painful decisions in his wake. The physical debris on the site of the old East Wing may end up being a symbol of much broader damage caused on multiple fronts, damage that could take decades to resolve.