The Ballrooms of Babylon

As the White House collapses behind him, Trump declares victory over mud, Medicare, and math.

The air smelled of diesel and delusion. Excavators gnawed at the East Wing like hungry rats while, twenty feet away, Donald Trump stood at a temporary podium declaring victory over mud. “Hello everyone,” he began, scanning the crowd with mock suspicion. “What a friendly group this is. No Democrats are here, right?”

The laughter was nervous, the kind that dies before it reaches the eyes. Trump smiled, satisfied. “I want to thank everyone. This has been a labor of love. We took over a building that was not properly taken care of. It just wasn’t. A very special building. We’re taking care of it.”

Behind him, a crane swung a wrecking ball into a wall that had survived the War of 1812 but not the Second Term. Dust billowed across the lawn as workers in hardhats yelled over the machinery. The press, officially banned but clustered behind chain-link fencing, filmed from the shadows as history groaned beneath the sound of diesel engines.

“It was grass,” Trump reminisced, “but people were sinking five inches deep when it rained. We fixed that. When we had a press conference, the women would lift up their shoes saying, ‘You destroyed my shoes!’ So we put in stone, the same color as the White House. Keeps you cool even in the summer. Luxurious grass, luxurious stone.”

A few nervous senators clapped, unsure whether the applause was for the renovation or for surviving another lunch invite. Lindsey Graham wagged his tail in a human body. John Thune stared grimly into the middle distance, calculating which part of the structure would hit him first.

Trump gestured broadly at the demolition chaos. “You hear that sound? That’s money!” he shouted over the din of metal and collapse. “Other people don’t like it, I love it. Reminds me of wealth. In this case it reminds me of lack of money because I’m paying for it. But it’ll be one of the most beautiful ballrooms in the entire world. Music to my ears.”

He praised his new “world-class ballroom,” a structure rising from the rubble like a Bond villain’s summer home. “For 150 years they wanted a ballroom. We’ve only had a cocktail area, eighty-eight people, if you squeeze. That’s not a ballroom. That’s a closet. So I said, if I do this again, I’m going to get a ballroom built.”

He beamed toward the horizon of cranes and scaffolds. “And we’re putting up our own money. The government is paying for nothing. You probably hear that beautiful sound of construction in the back. That’s music. That’s the sound of America coming back. When I hear that sound, I think of money. And also, patriotism.”

He squinted at the machinery as if expecting it to salute. “We finished about a month ago. Everything brand-new and beautiful. The whole White House being redone. You probably noticed the white marble floors when you came in, beautiful statuary marble. Made out of Home Depot tiles before. Broken. Thirty years old. Now marble, paid for by President Trump.”

Trump moved into his favorite subject: tariffs, the universal solvent. “Tariffs equal national security,” he said. “They ended eight wars. Nine coming.” He claimed to have prevented nuclear war between India and Pakistan “with trade.” He bragged about “luxurious grass,” “Home Depot marble,” and the “Presidential Walk of Fame” featuring George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and, by his own humble estimation, “maybe number three, Trump.”

As another section of the East Wing collapsed, the sound of the jackhammers blended into applause.

Meidas Touch co-founder Ben Meiselas, issued a plea to anyone with legal standing…

“A lawsuit needs to be immediately filed against the Trump regime to block further destruction of the East Wing,” thundered Ben Meiselas on a MeidasTouch broadcast that cut through the chaos like an emergency siren from a saner world. “It’s a violation of Article I’s power of the purse, of the National Capital Planning Act, of the Emoluments Clause, of common sense and decency! He said it wouldn’t touch the White House, but that was fraud, fraud! He said he’d pay for it himself, but now he’s asking oligarchs for $25 million a pop to get their names etched into the building!”

Trump, standing amid the clatter of cranes and applause, had indeed once promised the opposite. “It won’t interfere with the current building,” he’d told Fox, gazing across the lawn. “It’ll be near it, but not touching it. Pays total respect to the existing building, which I love, it’s my favorite.” Another time, on the roof, he’d sworn to reporters, “Anything I do is financed by me. Nobody ever mentions that. Anything I do is financed by me.” The crowd had cheered, mistaking self-dealing for sacrifice.

Now the lie was visible in the open air, backhoes clawing into what used to be the East Wing’s load-bearing spine.

“He said it wouldn’t touch the White House!” Meiselas explained again. “That’s the fraud. That’s the con. Every day more of the people’s house is being destroyed, and for what? A private ballroom for pay-to-play dinners. A donor’s name carved into marble next to Lincoln’s ghost!”

Trump raised his hands like a conductor, swaying slightly as if directing the percussion section of the apocalypse. The orchestra of jackhammers and rebar answered him on cue.

“We’re talking violations of the National Capital Planning Act, the Environmental Policy Act, the Ethics in Government Act!” Meiselas roared. “This isn’t a renovation, it’s an annexation!”

Trump smiled for the cameras that weren’t supposed to be there. “We are a wealthy nation again,” he said, “and we can start paying down our debt.” Dust coated the chicken piccata. “We replaced broken tiles with marble, beautiful marble! Paid for by me! Well, me and a few friends. Maybe from Saudi Arabia, who knows?”

Trump, undeterred by either gravity or logic, launched into economics. “We’re a wealthy nation again,” he boasted, waving one hand at the cranes behind him. “They just told me, $31 billion we found. Didn’t know why. It was a good find, not a bad find. With tariffs, we’ve become the wealthiest nation in history. We’ve got $17 trillion of investment, actually now, it’s $20 trillion. Twenty trillion! The largest amount in history, by far. Never been anything like it.”

He leaned in, eyes glittering with messianic arithmetic. “Biden had less than a trillion. Four years, less than a trillion! We’ve got twenty trillion, and it’s still going up fast.” The audience clapped as if their stock portfolios depended on it.

Then came the gospel of generosity. “No tax on tips,” he declared. “No tax on overtime. No tax on Social Security. No tax on anything, really. And the fake news says it’s bad for Medicare and Medicaid, it’s the opposite. It brings life. It saves Medicare. It saves Medicaid. They lie, they lie, they say it brings death, but it brings life.”

He raised his voice over the whine of machinery as a section of the East Wing gave way with a slow, cinematic crumble. “This is the greatest bill ever passed in Congress,” he thundered. “Everything’s in it, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all of it secured. Nothing to add. Nothing to fix. The country is rich again.”

A bulldozer backed up with a beep that sounded like a 1950’s laugh track.

The senators nodded along. Tim Scott was praised for “ripping hearts out on stage.” The president compared himself favorably to Washington and Lincoln again, then pivoted effortlessly to AI power grids and “no murders now in D.C.”

He wrapped up with a flourish. “We passed the greatest bill in history! We don’t need any more bills! Everything’s in the bill!” he proclaimed, as a slab of the East Wing façade finally surrendered to gravity behind him.

John Thune stepped forward, dusted off his suit, and said what every hostage must: “Thank you, Mr. President. Your leadership has been historic.”

The crowd rose in uncertain unison. A waiter wheeled out salmon salad as debris drifted across the linen like confetti from an apocalypse parade. The sun broke through the haze, illuminating the hollowed-out silhouette of the People’s House.

Trump grinned. “It’s a beautiful day in the Rose Garden,” he said.