Donald Trump told a Rose Garden Club dinner on Monday evening that the White House had been changed into a new patio, saying the grass had been replaced because people got tired of standing in mud. He said the wet ground had made the place a problem for visitors, especially female reporters in heels, and described the newly installed black granite walkway along the West Wing Colonnade as no-slip.
“I want to welcome you to the Rose Garden. You know, this is a whole new thing,” Trump said, before asking, “Darling, what did you do with my grass?” He added, “People got tired of standing in mud,” and said the White House was built on a wetland. He said the grass was always soaking wet even when it did not rain and called the place “not properly taken care of.”
Then he went further. Trump said, “Normally, I would have said it was a s--- house,” before adding, “But I don’t want to say that.” He said his wife had told him to act presidential and avoid foul language, though he still went on to say the White House was now “tippy-top.”
The remarks came as Trump continued to reshape the executive mansion in his second term. He has already made numerous changes, including gold additions to the Oval Office, the bulldozing of the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and the demolition of the East Wing to make way for a $400 million ballroom, according to a separate report. Trump said on Monday that he and his team were building that ballroom in back of the White House and called it the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world.
He said the new venue would have glass “this thick” and be built with the highest level of safety. The scale of the project matters because it shows the president is not treating the White House as a preserved monument so much as a construction site, with the Rose Garden patio and the planned ballroom forming part of the same overhaul.
Trump also brought up the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting from two weeks ago on Saturday night, tying the evening’s remarks to a recent security trauma even as he talked about renovations. The contrast was sharp: a president joking about mud, marble and foul language while also referring to a violent episode at a media event not long ago.
What he left no doubt about was the direction of travel. The Rose Garden may now be dry underfoot, but the bigger change is on the horizon, with the East Wing gone and a ballroom promised to be the showpiece of the property.
