Amid the rubble and rancor memorializing where the East Wing of the White House once stood, President Donald Trump and his team are trying to dig out. Public outrage has been piling up over the sudden demolition to make way for the sprawling, golden ballroom he has long craved. Trump says the new construction will be a monument to the country’s greatness, even as his team insists there is nothing unusual in how he is going about it.

“Nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House … has made modernizations and renovations of their own,” insists White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

First lady Rosalynn Carter works in her East Wing office on March 17, 1977. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum/National Archives

Author Kate Andersen Brower,

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