President Trump took a wrecking ball Monday to the state of the White House he says he inherited — blasting the executive mansion as a run-down embarrassment with crumbling columns, peeling plaster and shabby paint before he moved back in.
Speaking during a White House event honoring law enforcement, Trump veered into familiar territory: construction, renovations and what he sees as decades of neglect at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“This place was not properly taken care of,” Trump told the crowd, before joking that First Lady Melania Trump had warned him beforehand to “act presidential” and “don’t use foul language.”
Naturally, that lasted about five seconds.
“Normally I would have said it was a sh*t house, but I don’t wanna say that,” Trump cracked, drawing laughs as he described the condition of America’s most famous address when he returned for his second term.
According to Trump, the White House he walked into looked less like the symbol of American power and more like a deferred-maintenance nightmare.
“The columns were falling down. The plaster was falling off,” he said, adding the paint was in rough shape too. “But this place is tippy-top now.”
The president has turned the White House into one of his signature renovation projects, leaning heavily into the gilded aesthetic that made Trump Tower famous decades ago. Since returning to office, Trump has overseen sweeping cosmetic changes, including expanded gold décor in the Oval Office and a marble-heavy redesign of the Lincoln Bedroom bathroom complete with gold fixtures.
Critics have mocked the updates as “Mar-a-Lago meets Versailles,” but Trump has framed the project as restoring dignity and grandeur to what he says had become a faded shell of itself. “I spent a lot of time on bringing this house back, because this house was in very bad shape,” Trump said Monday, insisting the White House should look “incredible” and “pristine.”
Trump also hyped plans for a massive new ballroom behind the East Wing — a project that has already triggered outrage from preservationists and Beltway traditionalists who view the White House as untouchable sacred ground.
The president, however, pitched it as both luxurious and secure. “It will be, I think, the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world,” Trump boasted. “You’ll never see anything like it.”
Then came the classic Trump sales pitch — this time about the windows. “It’s got glass this thick,” he said, holding his hands apart for emphasis. “Like six inches thick, and you look through it, and you can see as perfectly as though it weren’t there.” Now, how they do that, I don’t know,” he added. “But it’s at the highest level of safety.”
Trump also referenced the recent shooting near the White House Correspondents’ Dinner while discussing the ballroom’s security features, arguing the upgrades are designed to ensure “you won’t have a situation like you had two weeks ago on Saturday night.”
The comments are likely to further inflame critics already furious over the administration’s aggressive remaking of the White House complex.
Trump says the White House was a ‘sh*t house’ before he moved in, now it’s ‘tippy-top.’ pic.twitter.com/FKAjcacsu6
— thedailybs w/ Snerdley (@thedailybs_Bo) May 12, 2026
