'Any announcement will come directly from the president himself': the White House responds on rumors that Trump will name the ballroom after him

The remodeling of the East Wing of the White House, where bulldozers are working to make way for an ambitious 90,000-square-foot ballroom, has unleashed a firestorm of criticism of the Republican administration.

This Friday, the media storm revolves around a rumor that has set the networks ablaze: over whether President Donald Trump will name the ballroom after himself, as Democrats multiply their darts against the GOP's ballroom decision.

It all started with a report by ABC News that quoted alleged senior administration officials claiming the space is already referred to internally as "President Donald J. Trump's Ballroom." The report, released Friday afternoon, stoked speculation about a possible imminent announcement, especially in the wake of Trump's meeting with NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, where the Republican showed off gilded details of the project in the Oval Office.

White House reacts

The White House was quick to react. Spokesman Davis Ingle, in statements to Fox News, noted: "Any announcement made on the name of the ballroom will come directly from President Trump himself, and not through anonymous and unnamed sources.”

Trump, for his part, evaded a question on the matter by noting, "I won't get into that now."

The million-dollar project is funded entirely by private donations from “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly,” as Trump claimed.

More criticism from Democrats

Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, wrote on Facebook: "Oh you're trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing? Donald Trump can't hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom.”

Similarly, Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton, who lived in the White House from the age of 12, posted on X: "The White House became my home when I was twelve years old. I always understood that it wasn’t my ‘house’; it was The People’s House. The erasure of the East Wing isn't just about marble or plaster — it's about President Trump again taking a wrecking ball to our heritage, while targeting our democracy, and the rule-of-law.”

A modernization and a dream come true

The project is a long-awaited modernization. The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, recalled that "nearly every single president who’s lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own.”

In that vein, a White House statement dismissed the criticism and pointed to it as “manufactured outrage”

by "unhinged leftists and their Fake News allies that are clutching their pearls over President Donald J. Trump’s visionary addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom to the White House.”