White House IMPLODES after Trump tears it down

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Donald Trump has destroyed the White House in a physical sense. I I know that morally he has destroyed it. I know that ideologically he has destroyed it. But Trump is in a literal sense tearing apart sections of the White House grounds while simultaneously turning part of it into a UFC arena for a fight in a couple of weeks. Look at this imagery where you now see the version of the White House that was there before and you see what is there now with a pit for construction in this boondoggle quagmire project which we really need a new ballroom for and then construction for a UFC fight at the front of the White House. This is disgusting and embarrassing. And think about how this would have sounded even 10 years ago in American politics before Trump completely rewired the brains of 30% of this country. You've got construction equipment tearing up parts of the White House grounds for the ballroom that supposedly donors were going to pay for, but now they need a billion because it's got to be secure and a bunker and this and that. A vanity project that Trump is obsessed with. Are we going to have Black Onyx as part of the project? Give me a break. And then on the other side, you've got the preparations for Trump's UFC spectacle, which is a total handout to his friend Dana White. It's a form of a no-b contract, really. And it looks not like the executive branch of the United States government. It looks like a strange hybrid of Mara Lago, reality TV, and some kind of bad reality show that has gone completely off the rails, even from what it was supposed to be. And that's kind of emblematic of this presidency of Donald Trump. Over these years, it's become spectacle and performance. And there's no better way to embody that than quite literally setting up for a performance, a spectacle, a a a sporting event at the White House. Now, I'm not obsessed with symbolism in any particular way, and I don't really have these sacred cows that I obsess about, but the idea of the United States government goes handinhand with the idea of the White House, which is it should symbolize stability, um, governance, diplomacy, continuity, institutional, uh, legitimacy, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican that's in control of the presidency. And I think to an extent it matters because it does it does matter how countries project power and some countries choose to project power through military strength, others through economic output, others through um standard of living for their people. But there should be a seriousness and a credibility to these institutions. when you knock down part of the White House and then have a completely stalled construction project that even your initial architect goes, "This is a crazy idea. I can't do this. I quit." And then on the other side, you've got a spectacle designed around the fight league owned by Donald Trump's friend Dana White. It just feels like a joke and it makes the United States appear to be a joke. And that's the macro. Now, if you look at the micro, you see, you know, the cosmetic redesigns of the Oval Office with the gold leaf and the gold paint and Trump's obsession with aesthetics and he wants the strongman imagery of tanks rolling down the streets of Washington DC in the style you would expect in Russia or China or North Korea. The rallies are really not policy events. They're kind of propaganda events with theatrical conflict generated out of nothing. It's part of the same thing. It's all part of the same transformation, I guess I would call it. Um, where governance is I don't even know that it's secondary. It's it's sort of tertiary. It takes a backseat to can we get attention? Can we brand stuff? What are the optics? Let's do something emotionally charged. And there are some some Trump supporters who love this crap. Someone I know I mentioned this I think it was last week personally on his Facebook. He goes, "Listen, I don't love Trump, but I do think we need the ballroom and that it's a good idea."

[00:04:19]And I didn't get involved, but fortunately, a lot of other people in this guy's comments were like, "Why do we need the ballroom? What are you talking about? How does the ballroom help the average person anywhere in this country who's struggling to afford the cost of their daily life?" It doesn't.

[00:04:32]Uh, but there are some Republicans who like it is the point. But to a lot of Americans, they see this and they go, "The White House is being turned into a personal branding project. Now they're talking about a $250 bill with Donald Trump's face on it. Trump's putting his name on all sorts of stuff. So there's the aesthetics, but then there's the internal questions that surface about is the United States declining institutionally and globally? Um is this level of political instability going to be the new norm in the United States? Is this democratic backsliding um going to be a new norm? Does the country still even take governance seriously or is it all about UFC fights and MAGA hats and this sort of thing?

[00:05:15]And then you see these whacked out images of what's happening at the White House and it's embarrassing. So you don't have to be a big symbols person.

[00:05:24]I'm not a big symbols person to recognize symbolism does shape perception and perception of the United States shapes our perceived political legitimacy around the world and whether the United States is seen as legitimate impacts our ability to work with other countries. It impacts geopolitics. It impacts foreign policy. That's the issue. So it is is it embarrassing at a practical level that we are seeing a UFC uh uh cage buil a UFC octagon built on the White House lawn? Of course it's embarrassing. Is the bigger concern what this does for the perception of the United States around the world? That's really the bigger concern. We are doing everything we can to fight back against this stuff. But the administration's eye has even turned against independent media. So, I am going to be running a 1day membership drive on Tuesday, June 9th. We are going to dramatically discount annual memberships. All because independent media is now under attack.

[00:06:30]It's under attack algorithmically. It's under attack judicially. So, I'd love for you to participate in this membership drive. All you need to do for now is get on my free newsletter. That's how we'll notify everybody when the membership drive is live. Go to davidpackman.com/substack.

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