President Donald Trump on Monday announced he has a “big decision” ahead.
But it has nothing to do with any of the core issues of the day including the war with Iran, tariffs, immigration or his latest threat against Canada.
It is about a renovation project at Lafayette Park, which is across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
“Now we have a big decision to make,” he said during an Oval Office event. “Do we take the pavers that are red ― y’know, the red brick pavers ― and do we change them into a granite, to gray granite? They’re beautiful, but they’re not the original. So we’re gonna have to make that decision.”
He noted that the granite is “stronger” and “holds up much better.”
Trump has been obsessive about renovations in and around the White House and throughout Washington, D.C., since he returned to office last year.
“If you looked at a chart of his mind share — this I will say about getting into his mind: Seventy percent of it would be on his renovations,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told “The Ezra Klein Show” last week.
He’s added golden embellishments throughout the Oval Office ― and even glued some of the items into place himself. He’s added similar embellishments elsewhere, including right outside the Oval Office doors.
Trump paved over the Rose Garden, transforming it into a “club” not unlike the patio at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Last year he knocked down the entire East Wing to build a giant ballroom, which he has obsessed over publicly and repeatedly.
Trump insisted his ballroom would cost $200 million, but at no cost to taxpayers because it would be funded with private donations. Since then, however, the cost has ballooned to some $600 million, with taxpayers on the hook for about half of that.
And, now perhaps most infamously, he ordered the botched renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which began falling apart almost immediately after it reopened. The president has, without evidence, blamed vandals for the problems there ― but charges against several of the accused have since been dropped.