Trump’s Latest Ballroom Push Is His Nero Moment

Donald Trump’s White House ballroom is the thing that proves America is in its decline. It’s Nero’s fiddle. It’s Marie Antionette’s cake. In an era of environmental catastrophe, on the precipice of the robot revolution, in a time of war, during a period of economic hardship, and in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt, this gilded play space has become the focus not only of the sitting president but also of the Department of Justice, the American press corps, and several courts.

The full-on-bonkers nature of the obsession became truly apparent earlier this week when Trump decided to use the failed attempt on his life to gin up public support for his ballroom—which is a wild thing to write, much less live through. “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!” Trump posted on Truth Social, echoing comments he made on Fox News shortly after the assassination attempt.

The idea that Trump needs a top secret (that everybody knows about) ballroom for presidential security is like saying JFK needed a faster convertible. It’s preposterous. The latest assassination attempt happened at an event where Trump was an invited guest, not the host; the dinner wouldn’t have taken place in the ballroom even if it existed. And the same goes for the previous assassination attempt, which happened on one of Trump’s golf courses, and the one before that, which took place at one of his own campaign rallies. Neither of those events would have taken place in a ballroom. Having a secure place for Trump to host visiting sycophants would not have protected him from these threats.

But wait, it gets worse. As first reported by Chris Geidner on his Substack Law Dork, it seems that Woodward and the DOJ allowed Trump himself to write most of the legal filing. The 500-word opening does not read like, well, a legal filing. Instead, it has all the telltale signs of a Trump post on social media. There’s the ubiquitous use of exclamation points. The random use of all-caps to emphasize words. The reference to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”