Trump turns to White House columns for next construction project
By Betsy Klein, CNN
(CNN) — The White House North Portico is covered with significant scaffolding, now covered by a drape, that’s gone up in recent days as workers rehabilitate the exterior columns at President Donald Trump’s request.
The column updates mark the latest effort in a spate of construction projects the president, a former real estate developer, has undertaken both at the White House and across Washington, DC.
Trump spent roughly six minutes inspecting the columns as his motorcade returned from Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. On June 9, workers were observed beginning to strip paint from the Ionic columns and the plaster. On June 29, a worker in a lift removed the massive lantern centered under the White House overhang and put its pieces into a box.
This week, reporters did live TV hits in front of a White House now fully encrusted in scaffolding, with loud bangs emanating from the ongoing work.
By Thursday afternoon, workers placed a new drape over the scaffolding with a printed image of the columns. A White House official attributed the project to “standard restoration work” and “stone repair in the columns.”
“We’ve taken about 150 years of paint off of the columns, and re-did them,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in the Rose Garden on Monday, asking if they’d noticed the scaffolding.
Trump questioned whether his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, noticed problems with the columns. “Do you think he walked in the office and said, ‘I don’t like the shape of the columns’? I don’t think so, Biden. I don’t like the shape of the columns — he didn’t notice things like that.”
The White House has not responded to CNN’s inquiry as to whether there would be more substantial changes to the North Portico.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department oversees White House renovation and restoration projects, attributed this new effort to Trump’s “attention to detail and the understanding to get it done.”
“He sees door dings in the pillars and says, ‘Look at all this stuff. It needs to be repaired,’” Burgum said during a recent appearance on “The Katie Miller Podcast.”
Asked how long the project would take, Burgum said, “It’ll go very quickly. I think they’ve been up, maybe, just about 10 days now, but these guys work very quick.”
Trump’s White House projects began with gilding the Oval Office, followed by tweaks to the Roosevelt Room and Cabinet Room. He’s paved the Rose Garden and demolished the East Wing to make way for a sprawling ballroom. And on Wednesday, he unveiled new signage on the exterior of the Palm Room in a photo posted to social media.
“The newly revamped West Wing of the White House, including signage and renovated walls, maple trees, and plantings!” the president wrote on Truth Social, sharing an image of “The West Wing” sign written in a shiny gold script.
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