After Republicans routed, Trump devotes first post-US midterm event to White House ballroom

WASHINGTON – “Now envision chandeliers all over.”

US President Donald Trump and his party had just suffered one of the most brutal defeats in modern political history, but when the American leader emerged before the cameras for the first time, what he wanted to talk to the public about was home renovation.

“Envision marble floor,” he said. “Oh, it’s going to be beautiful.”

A surreal scene played out on Nov 4 as the President led reporters through the White House ballroom to inspect its progress. He pointed out beams, talked about varieties of marble and generally shrugged off what had happened the night before as if it were not the bloodiest political bloodbath in the country since 1976 – as if he had not just seen Texas turn blue.

Inside his concrete chrysalis, everything was still beautiful.

“Did you guys see the helipad from up top, how beautiful that is?” he asked.

“The marble is really magnificent marble.”

“It’s a vein that people have been after for 50 years, and the owner of the quarry didn’t want to sell it, but he liked me.”

No malaise. Just marble.

At one point, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum stepped forward and said: “Today, of course, is a day of celebration, and it’s a day of gratitude.”

It was a mirror image of the event that Burgum and Trump held the day before the elections, at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where Trump stood inside a plexiglass box and rambled about rusty drainpipes and algae.

Many Republicans were frustrated, verging on apoplectic, that Trump used his closing message to talk about his pet construction projects. Now the blue crush they feared had come to pass, and Trump and Burgum were back at it.

“We’re upgrading trash island,” Trump informed the press – “trash island” is what he calls the public golf course on the Potomac River where he dumped rubble from the East Wing.

He was clutching a microphone as he wandered around inside the soaring skeleton of the ballroom. Every so often, the audio feedback from the mike would go haywire, and a cacophonous, screeching sound would ring off the massive beams inside the site.

“See the thickness and size of that steel?” he asked as he edged closer to the reporters. He decided to take a few questions.

He did not snap at anyone or growl. He did not call anybody stupid, fat or ugly. He was placid. He said he was not upset that the US Vice-President was sermonising on social media about their defeat. He said he did not regret going to war with Iran. He said he would not dump Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. And he defended the speech he gave at the Reflecting Pool on Nov 2.

“I heard it was a very good speech, got great reviews,” he said. “That was a speech very much like this is today.”

And so it was.

“Watch the beam go up,” Trump said all of a sudden, cutting off the questions for a time. He ambled towards another corner of the construction site, came to a stop and pointed up to a hole in the ceiling.

The place grew quiet. The reporters stared. A great beam was rising, up through the ballroom, lifted by one of the cranes that has encircled the White House for months. The beam got closer to the hole, but the crane operator could not quite get it out. It was like a game of Operation, as the beam kept dinging other pieces of the building’s frame.

Trump turned and said to no one in particular: “The entire building, every single hole was perfect, which is rare. But we had great people.” The beam made it through the hole. Construction workers clapped.

“Great stuff, right?” the President asked.

He outlined his thinking on the floor plan.

“The kitchen is underneath,” he explained, “because if I put the kitchen on top, and we have large staircases coming from the kitchen, if I put the kitchen on top, you would lose three walls because the kitchen takes about 30% of the space.”

Many Republicans inside the Trump administration woke up on Nov 4 profoundly depressed, worrying about legal exposure as Democrats contemplate how they will use their new powers on Capitol Hill.

Recriminations have already begun. Questions are swirling about who will leave the administration – and what kind of people will be left to take jobs inside going forward.

One close ally of the President working inside the government watched the Nov 4 ballroom tour and concluded that Trump was clearly shaken. Another administration official suggested that the President eat a pint of ice-cream next time instead of leading a televised tour through a space that for many has become a symbol of why the Grand Old Party went kersplat.

So Republicans looking to the leader of the party on Nov 4 to soothe their anxieties might not have been reassured by the ballroom tour. But then, other people’s anxieties might not have been the point.

“It was sort of mentioned a little bit during the campaign: Why does Trump spend time on the White House?” the President said into the microphone, his voice echoing through the construction site.

“Well, first of all, it’s very little time. Second of all, I like it. It’s good. For me, it’s relaxing.” NYTIMES