THE BALLROOM IS SUPPOSED TO BE TOO BIG

There's something hilariously earnest about the lede of this Washington Post story:

Trump wants a bigger White House ballroom. His architect disagrees.

President Donald Trump has argued with the architect he handpicked to design a White House ballroom over the size of the project, reflecting a conflict between architectural norms and Trump’s grandiose aesthetic, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.

Trump’s desire to go big with the project has put him at odds with architect James McCrery II, the people said, who has counseled restraint over concerns the planned 90,000-square-foot addition could dwarf the 55,000-square-foot mansion in violation of a general architectural rule: don’t build an addition that overshadows the main building.

You're saying that the addition might overshadow the main building because of its size? For Trump, I'm sure that's the point.

Trump is obsessed with this project, as we all know.

Trump’s intense focus on the project and insistence on realizing his vision over the objections of his own hire, historic preservationists and others concerned by a lack of public input in the project reflect his singular belief in himself as a tastemaker and obsessive attention to details....

Multiple administration officials have acknowledged that Trump has at times veered into micromanagement of the ballroom project, holding frequent meetings about its design and materials.

One positive aspect of this is that Trump has less time to obsess over other possible monuments to his own grandiosity. But I'm sure he hasn't forgotten about them:

In Sept., the IRS granted tax-exempt status to the Donald Trump Mount Rushmore Memorial Legacy apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcar...

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— Zach Everson (@zacheverson.com) November 23, 2025 at 8:22 PM

Maybe a "charity" called the Donald Trump Mount Rushmore Memorial Legacy is just another way of funneling money into Trump's pocket. But I'm sure Trump would like to be memorialized at Rushmore somehow. As AP reported in 2021:

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Thursday said she gave former president Donald Trump a $1,100 bust depicting the president on Mount Rushmore last year because she knew it was something he wanted to receive.

The gift was presented to Trump when he visited South Dakota on July 3 for an Independence Day fireworks celebration. The Mount Rushmore miniature stood 4 feet (1.3 meters) and depicted Trump alongside former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

It's widely understood that adding a fifth face to Mount Rushmore would be impossible -- The New York Times published a good explainer in June. However:

Perhaps more likely than a fifth president on Mount Rushmore are other ideas already in motion. Mr. Trump himself has proposed a National Garden of American Heroes, a sculpture garden to honor 250 Americans. His administration already has a list of potential honorees, but not a place for them. South Dakota officials are pitching the Black Hills as a home, within view of Mount Rushmore.

I suspect that the National Garden of American Heroes could evolve into a National Garden of Trump, and that Trump might not only want it placed "within view of Mount Rushmore" but might also want it to be so large and unsubtle that it begins to overwhelm Mount Rushmore, the way Trump's ballroom, if it's ever built, would overwhelm the rest of the White House.

I've never been to Mount Rushmore. Maybe it isn't possible to build a tacky, oversize monument to Trump that diminshes Rushmore's grandeur. But if there is a way, it's easy to believe that Trump will find it.

And no, I don't think we'll ever have a time when Trump is so widely reviled that nothing is built in his honor and anything that honors him is destroyed or remade. In the reddest parts of America, alas, I think Trump will remain a sacred figure.

Maybe we should be pleased that Trump is micromanaging the design of his ballroom -- this monomania probably allows us to avoid a Trump monument building boom all over the country.