Trump said new White House ballroom construction wouldn’t ‘interfere with the current building’

Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump said of the construction plan for a new White House ballroom, “It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it.”

Rating:

Rating: Correct Attribution

In late October 2025, internet users shared a quote attributed to U.S. President Donald Trump that appeared to directly contradict the reality of the ongoing construction of a new $200 million ballroom at the White House. Allegedly, Trump said the new building “won’t interfere with the current building,” but rather, it would “be near it but not touching it.”

Users on social media platforms such as Facebook (archived), BlueSky (archived) and X (archived) shared the alleged quote after authentic images of the White House’s East Wing being partially demolished appeared online in and in news reports from outlets such as The Washington Post, The Independent and BBC. Further photographs of the demolition are available to view on the reputable image bank Getty Images.

The spread of Trump’s alleged quote led to an influx of searches from Snopes readers looking to find out whether the president actually made the claim that the ballroom’s construction would not result in any interference with the existing White House.

The quote was correctly attributed to Trump. Snopes reached out to the White House Press Office for comment about the apparent contradiction between Trump’s words and the numerous credible reports about and images of the demolition and will update this story if we receive a response.

The president made the statement while answering a question from a reporter during a news conference on July 31, 2025. The occasion for the news conference was the signing of an executive order that created the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition and reinstated the Presidential Fitness Test.

The White House released an announcement about the construction of a new White House ballroom that day, and reporters asked about the plans during the news conference. Trump can be seen saying the quote in question in a Forbes YouTube video of the news conference.

At the 21:47 mark of the YouTube video, a reporter asked, “Can you talk about your plans for the new ballroom that was announced today? And the $200 million that’s going to be paid for by yourself as well as private donations?”

Trump responded (emphasis ours):

It’s a private thing. You know, I’ll do it and we’ll probably have some donors or whatever, but it’s about $200 million. So, we’ve been planning it for a long time. They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms. I’m really good. In fact, I looked at one that we just built in Turnberry in Scotland, and it’s incredible. We’re good at building. I’m good at building things, and we’ll get it built quickly and on time and it’ll be beautiful. Top of the line. We’ve retained the best architects and engineers, everything else. 

It’ll be built over on the east side, and it will be beautiful. It’ll be views of the Washington Monument. It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it. And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it. But they’ve wanted it. And you know, when they have big events, you entertain the president of China or the president of any place and you have big crowds, they’ve always had to get a tent. And you’ve probably been to some of them, Bobby. When it rains, it’s a disaster. And the tent’s a hundred yards. That’s more than a football field away from the main entrance. And people are schlopping down to the tent. It’s not a pretty sight. The women with their lovely evening gowns, all of their hair all done and they’re a mess by the time they get and they’ve always wanted to have it. 

And I said, you know, in the first term, I said, you know, if I get another shot at this, I’m going to do a ballroom. I was pretty busy in the first because I was running the country and I was also fighting for survival with all of the lunatics I had to beat. But it worked out. Obviously, it worked out very well because here we are. But I always said I was going to do something about the ballroom because they should have one. So, we’ll be leaving it. It’ll be a great legacy project and I think it’ll be special. You saw some renderings of the initial. I think it’ll be really beautiful.

This isn’t the first rumor about the planned ballroom we’ve investigated. For example, when we asked about ballroom construction moving forward during the government shutdown in early October 2025, the White House said in an email, “Ballroom construction is continuing as it is financed by private donations, not the federal appropriations that Democrats are holding up to push free health care for illegal immigrants.”

Sources:

Christensen, Laerke. “Who’s Paying for the New White House Golden Ballroom? What We Know.” Snopes, 1 Aug. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//news/2025/08/01/trump-gold-ballroom-white-house/.

Edwards, Jonathan, and Dan Diamond. “White House Begins Demolishing East Wing Facade to Build Trump’s Ballroom.” The Washington Post, 21 Oct. 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/10/20/white-house-begins-demolishing-east-wing-facade-build-trumps-ballroom/.

Esposito, Joey. “White House Ballroom Construction Will Continue amid Government Shutdown.” Snopes, 3 Oct. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/white-house-ballroom-shutdown/.

Lawrence Taylor. https://lawrencetaylor.athlete.studio/. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

“President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, and the Reesetablishment of the Presidential Fitness Test.” The White House, 31 Jul. 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/presidents-council-on-sports-fitness-and-nutrition-and-the-reesetablishment-of-the-presidential-fitness-test/.

“The White House Announces White House Ballroom Construction to Begin.” The White House, 31 Jul. 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/07/the-white-house-announces-white-house-ballroom-construction-to-begin/.

Trump Promises His Ballroom Construction Won’t ‘Interfere’ in Resurfaced Video. 2025. www.independent.co.uk, https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/trump-ballroom-white-house-east-wing-construction-video-b2849312.html.

White House Begins Demolishing Part of East Wing for Trump Ballroom. 21 Oct. 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ced6np51532o.

WHO WE ARE | Corporate. https://corporate.wwe.com/about/who-we-are. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.