Jewish Democratic Council of America

In the Biden and Obama administrations, I had the privilege of attending events at the White House. All guests would enter through the East Wing, which housed the Offices of the First Lady. During the holiday season, a military band would play on the East Wing Portico; for Hanukkah, they played klezmer and festive Jewish tunes. My favorite memories of entering – or exiting – the White House include spontaneous horah dancing on the East Wing Portico.

Once through the large white double doors of the East Wing, you were greeted with the warm glow of history and grace that adorned the walls, including portraits of first ladies. From there, you walked down the long hallway of the East Colonnade, filled with pictures of former first families. If you were attending an event, an essential first stop was the small White House movie theater in the colonnade, which doubled as a coat room. For all visitors, the East Wing was a gateway into the White House.

This historic gateway has been decimated and hauled away to make way for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that will dwarf the existing 55,000-square-foot White House. When asked in July about the project to build his massive ballroom – which looks eerily similar to the Winter Palace ballroom in Russia – Trump said the construction “won’t interfere with the current building… It will be near it but not touching it.”

That was a blatant lie, as we saw this week when Trump bulldozed the East Wing, and with it, an important symbol of our democracy connecting the White House to the American people.

Donald Trump lied about this project and evaded existing regulations by failing to get permission from the National Capital Planning Commission, which is required before major renovations of U.S. government buildings. With no one in the Republican Party willing to conduct oversight of, or even question, Trump’s plan to build a golden palace ballroom on White House grounds, there will be no accountability in the near term for his desecration of the People’s House.

Trump’s East Wing demolition is the perfect metaphor for his attempts to demolish our democracy. Donald Trump is disregarding existing regulations and democratic norms to pursue his self-serving agenda instead of fulfilling his obligation to serve the best interests of the American people. The Republican Party is complicit because Congress is supposed to be a check on the executive branch, but under GOP control, it is no more than a rubber stamp on Trump’s abuses of power.

Trump clearly doesn’t realize that he’s a renter, not an owner, of the White House. He views himself as an authoritarian, not a democratic leader. He has no respect for the will of the American people, a majority of whom disapprove of his demolition of the East Wing. He has no respect for the Constitution, which delineates a separation of powers into three coequal branches of government, which he has also bulldozed. He has no respect for the distinguished office he holds, as demonstrated by his abuse of the office to enrich himself and his family and weaponize the executive branch as a tool of political retribution to settle personal scores.

Despite Donald Trump’s apparent intention – reiterated yesterday by close Trump ally Steve Bannon – to stay on as president beyond his constitutionally-mandated limit of two terms, Donald Trump will be evicted from the White House in three years. The American people are the owners of the White House, just as we’re the owners of this fragile democracy, and we need to exercise our ownership before Trump claims eminent domain of our entire country, freedoms, and future.

The best way to remind Trump he’s simply a renter is to vote out Trump’s accomplices in the 2026 midterms, ensuring Democrats take back control of Congress, so they can reestablish the separation of powers, reassert democratic norms, and create democratic guardrails. Democrats winning in 2026 is the one thing standing between democracy and our slide into complete dictatorship.

If even one branch of Congress were controlled by Democrats right now, we likely wouldn’t have a government shutdown, as Republicans would have been forced to negotiate on skyrocketing healthcare prices before government funding ran out. There would have been hearings on Trump’s plans to build a palace on White House grounds, which would have likely thwarted his razing of the East Wing. Transparency would be returned to Washington, which may act as a deterrent against Trump’s authoritarian instincts. It would provide an essential check on his abuse of power.

Perhaps most importantly, Democrats winning next November (and this November) will send a clear message to Donald Trump – on behalf of the American people – that his residency of the White House, just like his presidency, is temporary, and his abuses warrant eviction. So long as Trump continues to behave as an aspiring dictator, he must be reminded that our White House, our democracy, and our country aren’t his to bulldoze.

Shabbat Shalom,

Halie Soifer

CEO, Jewish Democratic Council of America

P.S. More on the work JDCA is doing to defend democracy can be found in my extensive interview with The Jewish News of Northern California (JWeekly). It’s a wide-ranging conversation about JDCA’s work, the Israeli hostage release and ceasefire, GOP extremism, redistricting, and more. Check out the interview.

The Demolition of Democracy