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At President Donald Trump’s direction, crews on Monday started tearing down part of the White House’s East Wing to build a new ballroom Trump has championed, despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects.
Although Trump said in July the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself, dramatic photos of the demolition work Monday showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground.
The White House has moved ahead despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work to government buildings in the Washington area. Its chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, said that the agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition work for buildings on federal property, only construction.
Read Also: Trump To Meet Putin In Hungary, Zelenskyy At The White House
In other news, President Donald Trump is redoubling his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, announcing a second meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin one day before sitting down with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.
Trump’s announcement came shortly after finishing a call with Putin on Thursday. A date has not been set, but Trump said the meeting would take place in Budapest, Hungary. He later told reporters that he envisions the meeting happening in two weeks or so, and that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will host.
“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Trump wrote on social media. The two leaders previously met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough, a source of frustration for the U.S. leader who had expected that his longstanding relationship with Putin could pave the way to resolving a conflict that began nearly four years ago.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, said the Russian president initiated the call, which he described as “very frank and trusting.” He said Putin emphasized to Trump that selling long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, something the U.S. president has publicly discussed, would “inflict significant damage to the relations between our countries.”
