Trump says the White House was looking like a ‘dump’ before he started fixing it up

BS BULLETIN:

President Trump says the White House was in “very bad condition” before the extensive renovations he’s undertaken during his second term.
Trump says damaged stone, chipped columns, cracked floors and other deterioration made parts of the executive mansion embarrassing.
His sweeping makeover has included the North Portico, Oval Office, Lincoln Bathroom and grounds, along with the far more controversial ballroom project.

President Donald Trump has renovated hotels, resorts, skyscrapers and golf clubs. Now he’s giving his review of the property at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue before he started working on it. It wasn’t exactly five stars.

Trump told reporters that the White House had deteriorated badly over the years and suggested previous presidents should have paid more attention to maintaining it.

“The White House was a dump,” Trump said, according to Fox News.

Trump argued that the building was “in very bad condition” when he began his renovation push and said the problems went considerably deeper than decorating preferences.

He’s made similar complaints while showing reporters the work firsthand.

“The floors were in bad shape,” Trump said during an August tour, complaining about broken tiles that he considered inappropriate for the White House.

Outside, Trump said he found damaged stone and badly chipped columns. “The face of the building is in very, very bad shape,” Trump recalled thinking years ago.

Some of the deterioration has been acknowledged. The Associated Press reported that the nearly 200-year-old North Portico required refurbishment of stonework and plaster damaged by age and weather. That restoration, which began this summer, is now nearing completion ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit later this month.

Trump has taken a developer’s interest in the details.

He replaced the green Art Deco-era Lincoln Bathroom with black-and-white marble, remodeled portions of the Oval Office, changed the Rose Garden and ordered repairs and alterations throughout the White House grounds.

But the centerpiece is unquestionably his new ballroom and East Wing complex. That project has also generated the most controversy. The demolition of the old East Wing triggered lawsuits and objections from historic-preservation groups, while questions have persisted about the project’s enormous cost, its financing and the scale of the new structure.

Trump argues that the work was overdue and says the improvements will leave the White House in dramatically better condition for future presidents.

He has described the old condition in the language of a real-estate developer encountering a fixer-upper. “This building was falling apart,” Trump said during his August tour.

He compared the job to buying a run-down New York building and putting it back together. And Trump clearly believes the country’s most famous address needed somebody with exactly that attitude.