One thing that annoys me to no end is the nuthouse talk that liberals and progressives engage in about Trump. We both call him an ignorant moron and claim he has some scheme for world domination that he’s pulling on us right now. We explain bad things that happen to him as a part of some sort of scheme or plan, rather than attributing them to the fact that everyone in his orbit is incompetent. We engage in wild conspiracy theories, while saying the other side is a conspiracist cult. It’s exhausting, and it attributes literally everything in the world to this man. We literally pick which sports teams to cheer for and what actors to watch movies from based on politics. It’s exhausting, and it’s extremely off putting to anyone even 10% normal.

In doing so, we miss the point- Donald Trump is greedy and self-serving. He literally wants to be President to make money and make his legal problems go away, full stop. There’s not much more to it than that, and when they start doing something weird, we should view their behavior through that lense, rather than some grand conspiracy scheme to make his poll numbers go up. Like, when he started talking about his White House Ballroom project an hour after the White House Correspondents Dinner was interrupted by some unhinged nutbag trying to shoot it up.

Rather than taking my word for it, just do a little Googling and you’ll find what’s weird about this project. Up until this weekend, the proposal was to finance it entirely with private donations, which is entirely weird for a building that is 100% government owned. Type into Google “cost of the white house ballroom per square foot vs. normal costs.” Right off the bat, they give you the goods:

Based on 2025–2026 cost estimates, the planned White House East Wing ballroomrenovation is roughly $3,300 to $4,400 per square foot, placing it significantly higher than typical luxury or institutional construction costs.

White House Ballroom Costs

• Total Project Scope: ~90,000 square feet (addition/modernization).
• Initial Estimated Cost: $200 million (approx. $2,200/sq ft).
• Revised Estimate (Oct 2025): $300 million (approx. $3,300/sq ft).
• Later Estimate (Dec 2025/April 2026): $400 million (approx. $4,400/sq ft). olitico +4

Comparison to “Normal” Costs (Per Square Foot)

The $3,300–$4,400 per sq ft figure is exceptional, costing roughly three to five times more than high-end, complex construction projects.

Project Type	Estimated Cost/Sq Ft	Comparison
WH Ballroom (2026)	~$3,300 – $4,400	–
Top-tier Museums	$1,000 – $1,600	~3x lower
Life-Science Labs	$1,100 – $1,500	~3x lower
High-Rise (Manhattan)	$600 – $1,000	~4-5x lower
Luxury Custom Home	$600 – $1,000	~4-5x lower
Hospital (Standard)	$400 – $600	~6-8x lower

That’s astronomically high. Now, it goes on to note that there are some explanations for this, such as security, knocking down the old East Wing, and that the government is still involved, all of which are valid. But this valid? Not by a long shot. At best, it’s twice as much as any other similar project. And I bet it’s being built non-union (because it’s Trump), so it ain’t labor costs (or quality).

It is possible that the plans for a new bunker began before Trump took office again in 2025 (though no evidence has been shown of that), but the Ballroom idea itself came from Trump. So why? Rather than engaging in wild conspiracies about him wanting to stay beyond his term, or whatever else, let’s give the meat and potatoes answer here- they’re laundering money. They’re privately funding a project that is wildly overpriced, skipping any other branch of the government’s oversight or approval, and just started building the damn thing on their own. The only reason to do that is because someone in the inner circle is making money on the project. A President who released a meme coin to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars is also a President who would approve a massive privately funded project for himself or someone else to make hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s really not more complicated than that, nor do you need to project some crazy conspiracy into this. They want to make money, and they want to make it now.

Now wasn’t that simple?