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The Jim Acosta Show
White House Historian Ed Lengel Says Trump Slaps Founders in Face with East Wing Demolition plus Reed Galen on Threat of Trump Third Term
00:59:11
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
Foreign welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta show. And, you know, typically I start the show by saying it's another day that ends in Y and Trump's assault on democracy or, or something else happening here in Washington. But I think the, the right way to start the show is just it, it's gone. The East Wing of the White House is gone. That, according to the Washington Post. That's the big headline right now. A big piece of the People' House has simply been torn down without any public approval process, without experts weighing in in an official capacity. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has just unilaterally decided to take down a major piece of the White House complex. And here to talk about this is Ed Lengel. Ed was the chief historian for the White House historical association between 2016 and 2018. I think I have that right, Ed.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
And in the White House Historical association, for folks who are not completely familiar with it, I mean, it is the main historical society function that, that assists the White House preservation and, you know, assisting with artifacts that are kept at the White House or moved in and out of the White House. Very important role, almost a quasi government role. And you were the main historian there for a while. What's your sense of all of this? These pictures are stunning. And just the news that the entire East Wing has been taken down, I think is shocking to a lot of people.
- [01:36]
Ed Lengel
Yeah, this hits me on multiple levels. It hits me personally in terms of having been born in Washington, D.C. growing up in the area, my mom worked for the government. And so I've been going to the White House for five decades now, if not more. And so, you know, it's a very personal thing. It hits me as a White House historian and the time I spend at that association, which is incidentally an independent nonprofit and has the ability to speak on this if they want to. And then third, as a historian of the Founding Fathers, and I spent 20 years at the University of Virginia working in George Washington's papers. I've written a bunch of books about George Washington, including for the 1790s, when he and Jefferson were working together and conceptualizing White House with James Hoin. Yeah, they had an idea of what they wanted. And, and it's really on that point, I think that they're just like, smacking the founders in the face and that, that really bothers me.
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Jim Acosta
And, and how. So how are they. How is Trump smacking the founders in the face?
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Ed Lengel
Well, Washington and Jefferson worked together on the concept of what the, the President's House, the Executive Mansion, was intended to represent. Washington understood the symbolism. He understood the precedent that was being set on so many different levels, as did Jefferson. And, you know, it's an interesting contrast because Jefferson and Washington were political opponents. No, they. They disagreed on a lot of things, and they came to really dislike each other, particularly the era of the French Revolution. They had very different ideas. Jefferson wanted the house to be smaller. Washington thought it should be bigger. But they worked together, just as in the Constitution. So many pillars of our. Of our society and our government formed by compromise to develop a common symbol that was meant to represent a certain idea of what this republic represented. Now, I can say with absolute certainty, Thomas Jefferson would absolutely go ballistically insane if he knew about this ballroom, because he in particular said, we cannot construct anything that smacks of a palace, palace of Versailles, Buckingham palace, and any of these things, or a giant complex. It's got to be a home. And even Washington, who disagreed with Jefferson about a lot of things, he agreed on that concept. And so, look, I'm a conservative in a lot of ways, and I think conservatives are being disingenuous about this because they're saying, wait, do the founders matter or don't they matter? Does their intent matter? Are you really an originalist, or are you saying, oh, wait, they don't matter, or we need to modernize them? Which I find highly ironic.
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Jim Acosta
We're originalists. Unless our side disagrees with that kind of thing.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah, yeah. You know, they're taking up the very progressive talking points they claim to despise in order to argue for why this is such a good idea, you know, and yet you're saying the founder's intent doesn't matter because you're turning it into part of the party central now.
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Jim Acosta
Well, and I saw that the National Review was out there saying, oh, this is no big deal. And I. I thought this was. I was reading the Onion, but. But putting that to the side.
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Ed Lengel
And the Wall Street Journal, too, today, by the way.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, exactly. But, you know, I mean, this is the age of Trump, and people will compromise their principles at the drop of a hat. And I guess just to walk us through what do you know to be the. His.
- [05:27]
Ed Lengel
The.
- [05:28]
Jim Acosta
The proper procedures, the proper process that Donald Trump should have gone through, because there's a lot of information flying around as to what he. There, you know, the White House was saying today, oh, no, he. He can do whatever he wants, basically. And I don't know if that's exactly the case, but maybe you can shed some light on that.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah, it's a Good question. And I, I've been asked that a lot. And so I, I don't think that I can speak with confidence on what's legal or illegal. I noticed that the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and God bless them, they came out with a letter a couple days ago denounc they said the President is legally required to consult on this before he proceeds, which of course, he hasn't done. I don't know if he's legally required or not. Even supposing he is there there really is only one place that this could have been stopped, I mean, stopped, and that would have been if he had sought a public appropriation to pay for it, in which case Congress could have stopped him. Now he's talking a lot about how, oh, this is my gift to the American people. And even, even when I was, I talked a month ago, I was on Finnerty, of all places, and they, they asked me the same thing, you know, isn't he giving this as a gift? And I said, come on, he's doing this to circumvent Congress. And Finnerty had to agree that, yeah, I was right, you know, that and.
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Jim Acosta
Just the other day he was saying, well, you know, the Department of justice owes me $230 million. And I'm sure you saw this comment where he said, well, maybe I'll use some of this for charity or, you know, we're working on this ballroom over the White House. So he floated out the idea that he wants this legal settlement to come from the DOJ and he may turn and, and devote that, some of that money to this project. I want you to hear a little bit of Caroline Levitt was asked by one White House correspondent earlier today whether the President could basically do whatever he wants to any federal building, even like the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial. Let's play a little bit of that, we'll talk about it, okay?
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Caroline Levitt
Submit construction plans to the NCPC is because that commission, along with others, don't have oversight over demolitions, but only over construction. And so far you haven't built anything. So can you help us understand, can the President tear down anything he wants without oversight?
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White House Correspondent (Unnamed)
Could he demolish this building or say, the Jefferson Memorial?
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Caroline Levitt
Ms. So it's not the President who came up with that legal opinion himself. That's a legal opinion that's been held by the NCPC for many years. It's written so we can get you that background and that research if you wish to include it in your reporting, because it is very important. They have ruled consistently. Their general counsel has Said, when it comes to phase one of this project, the tearing down of the current East Wing structure, a submission is not required legally for that. Only for vertical construction will a submission be required. And that's a legal opinion from them. And we are following that legal opinion. And again, I would just add, can any president do such a thing to the White House grounds? There have been many presidents in the past who have made their mark on this beautiful White House complex. This briefing room, as you all know, was not once a briefing room. It was a swimming pool. There have been presidents who have completely torn down the Executive Mansion. If you look at what President Truman did, some of the photos of the construction project that took place in those years, I think sitting here today, we're all efforts and the modifications that happened.
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Jim Acosta
At that time, she's saying that, well, Harry Truman did it. And, oh, by the way, they converted the pool into the briefing room. And I've heard, you know, other Republicans say, well, you know, Obama put in a basketball court. I mean, this is completely different. Right.
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Ed Lengel
That's such nonsense. And they, they keep pounding this over and over and over again. And it's, it's, it's a logical fallacy. It's saying, okay, well, so other presidents have made changes. You know, there's been a portico or a colonnade, and that's what the Wall Street Journal did today. You know, they've done some other things. So ipso facto, anything goes. Right. Because other changes were made in the past. People didn't like, this is a 90,000 square foot ballroom. It's like saying, well, there've been amendments to the Constitution in the past, so why don't we just have an amendment that creates a fourth branch of government? You know, after all, we've changed it before, we can change it again. This is totally different.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And 90,000 square feet is almost twice the size of the White House building itself, excluding the east and West Wings. Correct. I mean, that's. That, that puts in perspective what we're talking about here. And Harry Truman, if I'm not mistaken, the White House was kind of falling apart. So they had to go in there and do some major renovations at that point. But it didn't involve tearing down the White House.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah. You know, from a, from a preservationist point of view, I think a lot of us, we look at what Truman did are like, oh, my God, why did he do that? However, you know, a couple of things. First of all, he did not tear down the Executive Mansion. What he did, he did gut it. The Interior That's, I wish he hadn't done that. He did it. However, he did go through Congress. He asked Congress for permission and appropriations to do that. He followed standard norms and procedures. He didn't just say, well, I'm going to do it and, you know, stuff it if you don't like it.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And, you know, I guess the other part of this is the ballroom itself and what Trump is proposing. There's. We have some video we can show, like some of the, the pictures that Trump is holding up to the public. It looks like something, you know, President Liberace might have wanted to have at the White House if there had been a President Liberace. And it's all gold, and he's put all this gold stuff at the Oval Office and so on. It's very, I mean, you know, this from a historic preservation statement. It just seems to me, and I, because I work there, it's very outside of what the White Houses typically look like. I mean, he's just, he's making it look like his house. You're supposed to be able to do to some extent, but this is like way overboard. Yeah.
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Ed Lengel
That's another thing that Jefferson would have been furious about because it looks like an aristocratic construction. I mean, look, we can, we can disagree.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, go ahead.
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Ed Lengel
We can disagree on matters of taste, but, you know, the President has tinkered with things inside and, you know, there have been taste issues, but any other president can change that back. This can't be changed back.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And then there's the issue of the donors who are allegedly going to be paying for some of this. We don't have an exact accounting of how much has come in. How much of that money are they ponying up? How much money is Trump ponying up? He's raised the price tag of this from $250 million to $300 million. And they're saying, oh, don't worry, taxpayers, you're not going to pay for any of this. But to staff, to maintain a 90,000 square foot ballroom, I mean, at some point the taxpayers are going to pay for it. And we still don't know whether the DOJ money is going to come in. What about the, just the aspect of how, I mean, just the crass nature of all of these major corporations. I'm looking through a list right here. Altria, Amazon, Apple, Caterpillar, Coinbase, Comcast, which owns NBC Use, by the way, Hard Rock International, Google, Lockheed Martin, Meta. I mean, it goes on and on, the Adelsons, you know, it just goes on and on as to who's going to be involved in this. Yeah.
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Ed Lengel
And my response to that, too is that they keep talking about this is a gift to the American people. My response would be, what if the American people decide and it's actually put to them. And as I understand from polls, most people don't like this.
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Jim Acosta
They don't. That's right.
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Ed Lengel
If the American people say, we don't want this anymore, are those same corporations going to pay to tear it down?
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Ed Lengel
No, we'll have to pay to tear it down if it ever gets torn down. And they know very well that we can't afford to do that. It's like somebody comes and they say, I'm going to build something on your front lawn, and believe me, you're going to love it. And you say, well, you know, I'm not sure. Well, I'm going to pay for it. Okay, well, what if I don't like it? You'll like it. Like, this is our house. This is not. This is not one person's house. Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
And, you know, we were. I've been down there the last few days just to take it all in. And you can see little by little, this, this part of this major part of the East Wing. Again, as for the viewers who are just watching today, didn't see the previous days, not aware. This is where the first lady works out of. This is where a lot of the social functions are operated out of. If you're showing up for a holiday party or if you're looking at the decorations at the White House, you know this. Ed from. We were talking about this before we started growing up in the D.C. area, people would go to the White House, look at the decorations. You would pass in many instances through the East Wing. It has a. It has a very important ceremonial function.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah. And it's also ironic, too, given that Harry Truman gutted the White House. I don't believe he gutted the East Wing. I think the East Wing remained Pre World War II. You know, it dates from Teddy Roosevelt and then Franklin D. Roosevelt. So in many ways they've destroyed one of the few Pre World War II, you know, original parts of the White House.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And the other aspect of this, which I find to be appalling, is the way Trump has lied about this. He said back in July that there would. You would not. It's not going to touch the existing East Wing. Not going to touch the White House. This is what he said. Let's play that built over on the east side and it will be beautiful. It'll be views of the Washington won't interfere with the current building. It won't be. It'll be near it but not touching it. And pays total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of. It's my favorite. It's my favorite place. I love it. Yeah, I said it won't interfere with it. Won't touch it. I mean, he just. They just completely lied about this. And. And did you get the sense that he was a kind of bullshitting the American people on this when he said that back then when he was talking about something like this?
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Ed Lengel
Yeah, it. There's a certain kind of way that. That this administration has always behaved on things like this. And I think what this indicates is that we have more surprises in store. And, you know, the idea in the first place that this structure pays total respect to the existing building just by its existence. It disrespects the existing building. It turns the mansion house into an annex to the ballroom. You know, because of the size. Right. It totally does that. But I think we can expect proximity is going to be much closer than we've been led to believe. And I think also the size and ostentation of the ballroom is going to be much bigger than we've been led to believe.
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Jim Acosta
And are you worried that he may be tempted to go further than this?
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Ed Lengel
Well, I think getting back to one of the questions you asked earlier is the consultation there was supposed to be. My sense is that even if he did consult or does consult, they can't overrule him. They can't stop him. They could slow him down. They could say this is terrible, but, you know, they could make a big political stink, which clearly he doesn't want. Now, there's always been, I think, a big loophole that presidents could have exploited over the years, at least over the past century, if they'd wanted to. The issue is that no president before this has chosen to break with established norms on this, whether it's illegal or illegal. You know, I don't comment. It certainly is a break with established norms that every other president has followed.
- [17:48]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And it's just the total lack of respect for this institution that we've always lived with. I mean, I think that's what hurts people. In a few minutes, I'm going to play a little bit of what I heard from just talking to people down by the White House. The last few days. I've been talking to people and they're just absolutely appalled. People are just appalled by this. It. It seems to touch them In a personal way. And I mean, I. I think some of that ties back to what you were saying earlier about what the Founding fathers envisioned for the White House and that they wanted to be somewhat accessible. It wasn't until, I believe, the 20th century that they put the fencing up. Right. That might have been during. That might have been during Harry Truman, but I'm not exactly sure. But there was a time where the people could just come up to the White House.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
And that was what the founders wanted. Yeah.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah, it is. And you can understand why that had to change over. Of course.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Ed Lengel
After security, a lot changed. But the idea that this is all of our, you know, this house belongs to all of us, that everybody has a stake in it, that's a little bit heartwarming when you think that people are reacting. They're like, hey, that's my house you're tearing down. That tells me that that idea took root. But I. I think it's going to be very hard to justify calling it a people's house any longer.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. Yeah. It's certainly not the ballroom. It's. It's the. It's corporate America's ballroom, it seems.
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Ed Lengel
It is. I think, personally, I think, and this is ironic, too, I think the president needs to not be so shy about this and not be so hiding behind the idea. This is the same thing that's been done before. No big deal. Just say, look, say that you know better than any of the other presidents who've gone before. Say that you know better than the founders, you have a better idea what to do with this, and then say you're just going to do it. You know, don't pretend that it's just like anything else.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Ed Lengel
Because it's not. Everybody knows that.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, right. It's almost. The lies are almost a little childish. They're almost expecting, you know, that. That you can just pull the wool over our eyes and we're just going to buy this baloney. Any other thoughts, Ed, on this? I mean, it sounds as though you're pretty disappointed about this. I mean, this is something you've given your life to, the study of the presidency.
- [20:12]
Ed Lengel
It is. And look, too, Jim, this comes from. From somebody. I'm. I'm basically. I'm a conservative. I'm an independent, but I'm a conservative. Sure. And I think I've learned here, again, conservatives and Republicans are not the same thing. That's. That's clear. I think conservatives should. Should, you know, have a little gut check here, and people should ask themselves. You talk about the Founders, you talk about, stop tearing down Jefferson, stop tearing down Washington. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe what the Founders intended? I do. I think it's still relevant. I think their concepts for what this House represents are still relevant today. And for God's sake, I've had so much interest internationally. I'm going to be talking to Sky News in Great Britain right after this and talk to the Dutch and the French, the Irish, and they're all stunned. That tells me, on the good side, they still care about the message that we're sending, that that original idea still means something to them. And if we're tearing it down, they're like, hey, I thought you stood for this, but we're saying, no, no, we don't stand for this anymore. That's sad. But it's nice to know they still care, you know? Yeah, they're just. They're disappointed, but they still care.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And to some extent, it's sad that the rest of the world seems to care more about the East Wing coming down than Republicans here in Washington who just, you know, they may care, but they don't. They. They don't dare speak ill of the Dear Leader. You know, they're. They. They're not going to stick their necks out, even when it comes to tearing down part of the White House, a huge part of the White House.
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Ed Lengel
I wish conservatives would start to speak out on this, because this should be. This should be meat and potatoes for conservatives. That. This. No, this is not a conservative act. This is a radical act, and it radically changes the nature of our country and what it represents. Do you really believe in that? You know, if so, don't. Don't talk to me about legal originalism anymore. Don't talk to me about the Constitution anymore because you're saying those things the founders intended don't really matter because we can update them. So don't. Don't tell me about. You don't like progressive legal theorists telling you that, you know, the Constitution needs to be adapted for modern needs. You claim to hate that, but yet. And you're saying, oh, wait, the White House doesn't really matter. Just come on.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, what's next? I mean, does he want to turn it to a casino? I mean, there was a guy asking us earlier today, is he going to put a Burger King in the ballroom? You know, like, there. There just seem to be no standards. They're just those things. Yeah.
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Ed Lengel
Follow the logic. Hey, there have been other changes before, and people complained, but we all got used to it. So, yeah, why don't we, why don't we put a McDonald's there? The logic follows.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. Ed Lingle, thank you very much. Really appreciate the expertise, the insights, and I've been desperate all week to get a historian or an expert on all this, so really appreciate the time. Very generous review to come on, and we'll see what happens next, you know. Yeah, I'll call you when the Dairy Queen gets put in or something, you know.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah. Or maybe don't. But thanks, Jim. I really appreciate it. It's an honor to be on your show.
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Jim Acosta
Oh, thanks a lot, Ed. All right, take care. Really appreciate it. And I mean, honestly, you don't want to laugh, but if you don't laugh, you'll cry, I think as John McCain used to say or somebody used to say. And, you know, I, I, I just feel emotional about this. I'll be really honest with, with everybody. This is something to me that feels like we've been attacked. That's what it feels like. It feels like an attack on us. An attack has been carried out once again by the President of the United States on our democracy. You know, we saw what happened on January 6. He incited a mob to go down to the Capitol. They wrecked the Capitol, defecated in the Capitol, broke windows, you know, made a giant mess of the place. And here he is again destroying part of our democracy just with, without a care in the world. And, you know, I, I, I feel it deep down. I think a lot of other people feel it deep down. And, you know, we were down there earlier today. You know, I've been going down there repeatedly and just to check on the progress of this, because I, you know, I was wondering, is he, are they going to tear the whole damn thing down? And they've torn the whole damn thing down. And I, I could see it little by little as it was taking place over the last few days. But I once again talked to some folks down there today. Let's play a little bit of that and we'll, we'll talk about it. Well, here we are. It's day three of me coming down here and checking out what's happened to the east wing of the White House. And what we can see today, it's just about entirely gone now. You can see the construction equipment in there, but they're basically now loading debris onto dump trucks and taking them off of the White House grounds. And we came down once again to talk to people about this. And as one person just said to me a few moments ago, why do the rules not apply to him? Where y' all from? Seattle, Washington. Seattle, Washington. Okay. Here for a vacation or. Yeah, we're here just to. Yeah. What'd you think when you saw this?
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Ed Lengel
Well, I think it's a desecration of the building.
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Jim Acosta
Who needs a ballroom? What do you think, sir? I don't know what to think.
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Reed Galen
I'm kind of alarmed.
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Jim Acosta
I didn't see any kind of approval going on, and it wasn't. So, of course, he likes to do what he wants to do. So I feel, like, angry, I guess, but it's also not surprising because I was just telling her, like, he's tearing apart our Constitution. Who's surprised that he's tearing down a building? It's pretty gross, but it's the times that we're living in, I guess. What do you expect? Exactly. This is. We should expect it. Right. And there it is again. You can see the construction equipment. They're. They're basically just tearing down what is basically left of the East Wing at this point. It's all been knocked down. And we. I saw a few dump trucks going in and out of the property today, and they're basically just scooping up what was left of the East Wing, putting into dump trucks and hauling it away. So there's no. There's no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. There's no. You can't put the pieces of the puzzle, and it's been smashed to bits. It's been torn down, and they're now in the process of just hauling the remnants of the East Wing away. And I want to bring in Reed Galen, who is not only just a great political mind, former GOP operative, co founder of the Lincoln Project. And, Reed, great to see you as always. Host of the home front on Substack on just. He's everywhere. But, Reed, you. I was reading your sub stack earlier today about this, and I thought it was terrific because you. You talked about how you worked at the Treasury Department during the George W. Bush administration, and you had a view of the East Wing, and so this must pull at your heart, too.
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Ed Lengel
Yeah, it.
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Reed Galen
Thank you, Jim, for having me. It's great to see everybody. Yeah. So, yeah, as a much younger man, you. You go through East Exec, right? So you see that?
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Reed Galen
West Exec, which is the road between the EoB and the West Wing. And then East Exec is between the East Wing and the Treasury Department. You go up the stairs, and my office, like, looked right out over that. And, you know, in some of my Hazier Mornings I'd sort of sit out there and think about like, oh, what, what, you know, what will future generations think about when, you know, the American Empire is the Roman Empire? But I never thought that would actually come to fruition, certainly not in my lifetime. And so, yeah, it was, it was, you know, one of those weird things in the piece I wrote that, you know, after 9 11, the, the East Wing houses the White House military office and we can also get to just real estate. Like, where are you going to put all these things? Yeah, but you know, I was on the phone with a colonel in the military office because I work for Paul O', Neill, the Treasury Secretary. And after 9 11, they had to get everybody out of town. Right. They remember Cheney would famously go to undisclosed location. So they said, look, you can either go out to the middle of nowhere, wherever that was, or we'll give you a, an Air Force G5 and you can fly wherever you feel like, hey, that's great. So I'm on the, on the secure phone and the chief staff's office talking to this colonel in the military office. I said, colonel, can we just go across the street and talk? Right. And so like that, that was sort of one of my, my memories of that kind of stuff. And then sometimes, you know, we, we had plenty of friends at the White House. They'd be like, hey, we're going to waive you. And you know, it's the wave process. I don't know if they still call it that, Jim.
- [29:23]
Jim Acosta
I think they call waves. Yeah, Yep.
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Reed Galen
Yeah. And you could go through, and you'd walk through the White House over to the West Wing or you know, to the, to the eob, wherever you want. And I also, of course, also worked at the White House for a year. So yeah, there was the nostalgia of that and then just the sort of, as I'm sure so many of your guests have talked about, just the just face smashing metaphor of the whole thing.
- [29:44]
Jim Acosta
Right. For sure. And I, you know, the thing that, that pisses me off is all the lying. And I guess that shouldn't piss. I mean that should not be a surprise. But when he was saying back in July, oh, it's not going to, not going to touch it. I mean, I have to think that there was somebody involved in the process that knew, oh yeah, we're going to be touching this thing, if you want to create a new entrance to this ballroom, obviously things are going to get touched. And so he just lied about that. And now he's trying, they're trying to pretend as though this is not going to cost the taxpayers anything. Right. And there's, you know, this is a picture of what it used to look like via the White House Historical Society. Right. And you know, it's, it's pretty remarkable. What has taken place on the right side of the screen is where, you know, 15th street shoots up towards Northwest D.C. and you know, that is all gone. That's just gone.
- [30:38]
Reed Galen
And it's, it's fascinating too, Jim, because you know, this thing is going to be 90,000 square feet and they say $300 million. Anybody who's done any kind of renovation to a home. Right. What, what's the rule? Twice as much money, twice as much time.
- [30:55]
Jim Acosta
Yes.
- [30:56]
Reed Galen
Right. So I mean, and they've already raised.
- [30:59]
Jim Acosta
It from 250 to 300. They've already, that was the, just this week.
- [31:05]
Reed Galen
It'Ll be a billion. The difference is, is like every, like every other good New York developer, you know, there'll be plenty taken off the top for, for Donald and, and co. But 90, 000 square feet is, is, you know, was it NFL field? Is like 56, 000 square feet, I think something, Right? Yeah. The Taj Mahal, the mausoleum of the Taj Mahal is about 15,000 square feet. So it's an outrageously large space too, you know, and you could make an. Oh, well, you know, they've always said they've needed more event space in the White House. Okay, yeah, sure. It's always been constrained by its, its age and it's in its logistics. But this I don't think was probably the answer most people are looking for. And to your point, you said right before you brought me on, I got asked earlier today, like, what do you think they should do? How are we going to stop this? I'm like, it's already gone. You just mentioned it like they're putting in dump trucks and carrying it away. Like, I don't, I don't know what else you want to say at this point. It's, you know, as far as the destruction is concerned. But again, you know, the presidential, Presidential Emergency Operations center at the entrance to it is, is under the East Wing. What are they going to do with all these things in the meantime? Because this is the other thing. Now, you've also turned the White House into an open construction zone where it's going to take significant trucks, all the other stuff to make this thing happen. You're going to have to have those gates open all the time. Right. I mean, you know, the bollards and everything go up and now it's going to be, they're going to be trucks in and out of this thing all day, which I assume the Secret Service has to hate.
- [32:30]
Jim Acosta
There's no question about that. And then the other issue is, and I, you know, I've been trying to show some of these pictures that I took this week. You know, the video's not so great, but I did the best I can can with my iPhone. They've got almost everything cordoned off to the point where it's very difficult for the public to see this. They've got all these, you know, protective walls set up and so on that basically shield the public's view. So they're trying to do this undercover without folks being able to see it because they, I think they recognize too what a screw up this is politically. Maybe not all of them, but some of them do. And the other issue, Reed, that I've been thinking about is, is at what point? I mean, I guess Trump's made some decent golf courses, I suppose here and there. But like Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump airline. I mean a lot of the, that he's tried to build over the years has been just a total failure. So why do we think this is going to turn out that great, you.
- [33:22]
Reed Galen
Know, Well, I mean, I, I, I would hope that now with not only, you know, I don't, it sounds like they've completely bypassed the National Park Service and I guess they're funneling all the money through the, the trust and all this other stuff. Yeah, but I would assume that, that, you know, he doesn't want it to be half assed, you know, I mean it will be ridiculous, it will be gaudy. I don't think we should deny that. But yeah, I don't, I, I assume that there are security reasons why the service and everybody else will want it to be up to some, you know, architectural standard. I can't imagine that the windows, normal panes of glass you'd buy at Home Depot. So I, I think that, yeah, it'll be, it'll take way too long. It'll be, you know, way too expensive. But you know, so long as Meta and, and Google and everybody else are writing the checks for it, you know, I don't, I don't think he really cares. I wonder, do you think they'll each have like their little, their little table tents when, when you go like, where are you? Oh, I'm at Google 4. Jim, where are you? Oh yeah, you're at Meta 3. Okay, good. Well, I'm across the way. It'll take me 16 minutes to walk to you, but, you know, I'll see you next year.
- [34:25]
Jim Acosta
Right. Well, and there's, I mean, that is an important part of this because it's supposed to be the People's House. It's supposed to be the People's House, and yet this ballroom is going to be owned by these giant corporations. For all intents and purposes, they're going to be the ones that built it. And so, you know, I mean, that he's just completely blown to bits this notion that it's the People's House anymore. I do want to tackle some other subjects while I have you here. I'm kind of curious what your view is on Trump's polls tanking. There's some really shitty polls for Trump this week. There's a Quinnipiac poll that shows just 38 of respondents said they approve of his handling of the economy, 57 disapprove. His previous low had been at 39.
- [35:08]
Reed Galen
Right.
- [35:08]
Jim Acosta
And you know, I mean, there, there's a whole battery of other polls that have come out in the last week or so that show he is, things are not good for him right now. And this, this East Wing thing, this White House demolition thing, I, I would have to think are going to sink those polls even further.
- [35:28]
Reed Galen
Well, I, I, if they do, amongst the rank and file Americans, the American taxpayer, the American working man and woman, they will see it as yet another example of, of what I think they're starting to feel, even if they don't want to say it out loud, which is Trump and co promised that they would bring prices down. They promised they would make life easier. And it's just not that. And in fact, it's going to be worse. You've got the government shutdown, which, you know, Mike Johnson is Mr. Pretzel, and Trump doesn't seem to care because it doesn't affect him personally. But here, see, it's the 23rd of October, so in the next eight days or so, we're going to have premiums start to skyrocket. We're going to have EBT cards start turning off. And so the reaction to this is going to come fast and furious from actual people for whom these things, Jim, are not, they're not in surveys. They are not, they are not something, oh, we think about these are the real lives of real people. Electricity is up 10% year over year. Groceries are up year over year. Inflation is stubborn, it's not coming down. And so I think that what's going to happen, as you know, having covered Both the White house in Washington, D.C. so long is even Trump, Mike Johnson, John Thune, the Republican leaders. There's only so much political bandwidth they have, there's only so much political backbone they have, and there's only so much time they have. And so at some point, they're going to start to feel, okay, wait a second, like now people are going to get really pissed off. You know, the Democrats have held their own, you know, and I'm sure in the face of incredible pressure on their own. Right. But now what you're going to see is like, why do we see all of this stuff happening with, like, these congressional districts we just saw in North Carolina? Because the Republicans in Congress and the U.S. senate know that Trump is a political albatross when he's not on the ballot. They lost 40 net seats in 2018. They know that that's an a likely number or at least a near guess in 2026, if they even run competent, just plain competent campaigns. And so the Republicans are trying to cut those margins as much as they can on the front side, but they can't do it if now what's going to happen is all of those people who gave Trump the benefit of the doubt because he was going to be different, but he's not delivering. Right. And that's the one thing he, you know, he was the beneficiary of a very strong economy in the first, you know, the first term he had. And then Covid hit, he was turned out because obviously, you know, a variety of things, but now he can't really blame anybody. They're calling it the Schumer shutdown, but I don't think that. And we've seen plenty of polling and man on the street interviews and everything else saying that. I think the average American knows Republicans are in charge because Trump never shuts up about it.
- [38:13]
Jim Acosta
Exactly. That's right. You know, he always talks about it was a landslide and everything else. And, you know, you mentioned the redistricting thing. I'm wondering, because it's been a while since we've spoken how you think Democrats are handling this. I thought it was a helpful sign today that Virginia Democrats came out of nowhere and initiated a surprise plan to redraw the Virginia congressional map to help Democrats, which is really interesting in that there's that this gubernatorial, these statewide races coming up in, in early November, just a, like a week or so from now. But the lawmakers there in Virginia are talking about doing their own redistricting to kind of counter what Trump is doing in Texas and, and he's trying to do in Indiana, although Mitch Daniels in Indiana, the former governor is saying, don't do this, Indiana Republicans, which I find interesting. Do you like that Democrats are sort of fighting fire with fire here. They don't really have a choice, I suppose.
- [39:06]
Reed Galen
Yeah, I don't think so. Look, do I think it's good governance? No, but you know, look, we're so far off the map in that regard.
- [39:12]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That goes out the window.
- [39:14]
Reed Galen
Right. That's off the, you know, and Prop 50 is up here in a couple of weeks in California. You know, we'll see. Does it have the legs to get over the line? I don't know. I ran ballot measures in California for 10 years. Nothing is a done deal in those sorts of things. They often take on a life of their own. And so do I think it's a great thing. I don't. But to your point, in the system we're in, this is where we are. Also, let's remember that these are the margins. Right. 90% of these seats are so gerrymandered by both parties that they're not competitive anyway. So you're really arguing over about 45, maybe 50 seats on a good day. And that's where, you know, the vast majority of the money is going to be spent. The vast majority of the attention is going to go. And so, you know, do I think it, it'll have a. Make a difference? I think it will. You know, do I think Republicans will try and sue? Because they always go back to like, well, the rules matter. They might. But you know, I, I think that, you know, as you mentioned, Indiana hasn't gone along with it. Missouri still hanging out there. Florida could do something. So, you know, and remember, a place like Florida too, Jim, very late filing deadline, not till May, very late primary, not till August. So there's still plenty of shenanigans that I think we're likely to see between now and a year.
- [40:28]
Jim Acosta
Interesting. Okay. But you, you tend to think that the Democrats are going to mount a comeback here, even. I mean, they're. The Dems. Polling numbers are not very good either. I mean, they're, they're, they're not a good place.
- [40:40]
Ed Lengel
Right.
- [40:40]
Jim Acosta
But they'll be the alternative. I suppose so.
- [40:43]
Reed Galen
Well, they, they will be. Well, they will be the alternative. But that's the question is, and you asked the perfect question, is that enough? And I think that if they're going to be enough, they're going to have to say, if not, we're not in charge. It's not Our fault. That's. You could say that is step one. And you can blame Trump, but that's, you know, how often does that work anymore? But what you can say is, if we were in charge, this is what you'd be seeing. If we were in charge, this is what we'd been. We'd be doing. And it can't be some sort of warmed over status quo, you know, old wine in a new bottle. They're going to have to come with, look, they could be recycled ideas.
- [41:20]
Ed Lengel
Right.
- [41:21]
Reed Galen
There's only so many ideas in governance about making lives better. Right. There's only so many things you can do, but they better come with some energy and some backbone and some fight and, and, you know, look, I, I think it's great that a Gavin Newsom is doing tweets and AI videos, but at the end of the day, like, most voters don't care about that stuff.
- [41:40]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [41:41]
Reed Galen
You know, if, if they want to.
- [41:42]
Jim Acosta
Hear meat and potatoes ideas, and I think it's why Bernie and aoc, I mean, you know, people may not be that to the left, but they're talking about proposals that there's a, there's an audience for that. And it may be a growing audience, depending on how Gilded Age gets over the next year. I mean, hard to get more than.
- [41:59]
Reed Galen
We have it already, for sure.
- [42:00]
Jim Acosta
Gilded ballrooms and all that.
- [42:02]
Reed Galen
Right.
- [42:03]
Jim Acosta
And then, and then finally, Reed, are you as worried about the state of our democracy as I'm hearing from everybody else? I mean, when I was talking to this historian a little earlier about the state of the White House, and I mean, Caroline Levitt earlier today, she was asked, well, can Trump just take out any federal building? Can he go after our monuments? Can he do that? She didn't say no. I mean, that's pretty, pretty wild to hear that from the White House press secretary. I'm not sure Caroline Levitt fully understands what she's saying at any given moment, but, you know, if he has this little respect, this little regard for the People's House, and they seem to be carving out this legal idea that they can just do whatever the they want.
- [42:45]
Ed Lengel
Right.
- [42:46]
Jim Acosta
That, that, I mean, people might think this is a small issue. I, to me, it speaks volumes.
- [42:51]
Reed Galen
Well, I think it does, too. I mean, look, let's, let's fast forward to next year before we get to, before we get beyond that. We already know that, that a lot of the block grants that the feds typically send to states just to keep elections running, not for any partisan purposes, but just for county clerks and registrars. To hire extra people, temporary workers, all that sort of stuff. A lot of that stuff has already been scrapped, so it's going to be harder to participate. We've seen in a lot of places, like, you know, in Houston, right in. In down there, they have one Dropbox for the whole county right now. That's a huge county. Harris county's got probably 4 or 5 million people in it, and you have one Dropbox for the whole place. So they're just going to make the logistics of it harder. I am a little bit concerned about whether or not he tries to deploy the National Guard. I have a real concern about these constitutional sheriffs just rolling out deputies in their smoky hats, just sort of scaring people off. So those are some of the practical things. And then for 2028, Steve Bannon was just doing an interview with the Economist where he said Trump's going to run again in 2028. Now, look, I don't know if that's true, but I take Bannon at his word that he's going to try and figure it out. And so if you think we're off the edge of the map now, just wait. And here's the other part is, you know, J.D. vance wants the big chair. Marco Rubio wants another shot. A lot of these people, like he.
- [44:15]
Jim Acosta
I think J.D. vance wants the couch, but I don't want to get into furniture right now.
- [44:19]
Reed Galen
Well, this is a family show, Jim. Let's come on some days.
- [44:23]
Jim Acosta
But you mentioned Steve Bannon. Actually, I think we have that sound. Let's play the Steve Bannon. I think we have the Steve Bannon sound where he. He says this crazy shit and people. Oh, he's crazy. He's just saying crazy shit. No, this is how they think. Let's listen to this and we'll talk about it.
- [44:38]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, accommodated with that.
- [44:39]
White House Correspondent (Unnamed)
So what about the 22nd Amendment?
- [44:41]
Steve Bannon
There's many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is. But there's a plan. We had longer odds in 16 and longer odds in 24 than we got in 28. And President Trump will be the president United States. And the country needs him to be president United States. We have to finish what we started. Trump is a vehicle. I know this will drive you guys crazy, but he's a vehicle of divine providence. He's an instrument.
- [45:04]
Reed Galen
He's very imperfect.
- [45:06]
Steve Bannon
He's not churchy, not particularly religious, but he's an instrument of divine will. And you could tell this of how we've. How he's pulled this off. We need him for at least one more term.
- [45:17]
Reed Galen
Right.
- [45:17]
Steve Bannon
And he'll get that in 28.
- [45:19]
White House Correspondent (Unnamed)
You're not driving me crazy. I'm really. I'm trying to understand the coherence of the things you've just told me. On the one hand, you've said the Constitution is fit for purpose. Secondly, you've said that President Trump needs another term, Even though the 22nd amendment makes pretty clear that he cannot have another term.
- [45:35]
Jim Acosta
And why does it make that clear?
- [45:36]
White House Correspondent (Unnamed)
Because he's on his second term already.
- [45:39]
Steve Bannon
At some point in time, we will make sure we go through Zanny and define all those terms.
- [45:45]
White House Correspondent (Unnamed)
But you will be undermining the spirit of that amendment, even if you find some way around it.
- [45:49]
Jim Acosta
Not the spirit. The actual amendment mechanism we have put.
- [45:53]
Steve Bannon
That, I mean, back in office are the American people read. I mean, tearing up the Constitution.
- [45:58]
Jim Acosta
I. I feel like if I listen to Steve Bannon too much, you know, my brain hurts, and I'll start having three pens on my shirt. I don't know, understand that he. There's multiple shirts. He has three pens.
- [46:09]
Reed Galen
Listen, if you spend that much time in the bottom of a bottle of Cutty Sark, you'd look like that, too. Right.
- [46:15]
Jim Acosta
It's so true. Yeah. But to your point, as you were saying before we played the sound. And thank you for queuing that up. That was perfect. When they talk about 2028 like that, I think people should take it seriously. As much as we want to laugh at Steve Bannon and think he's absolutely crazy, I think take it seriously. Very seriously.
- [46:34]
Reed Galen
Yeah. And this is one thing I would say is that, you know, we have to ask ourselves, and really, we have to ask our political leaders. Jim, if. If you believe that Trump is an existential threat to the Republican and he's not going to leave, then you should start acting accordingly. If you don't sort of act like you are, which is. I'm really worried. I'm really scared. But, you know, for me, we are still a federal system. Right. Is dominated by the feds, as we have been for a long time. There's plenty of things that. That states can do in their own right or in conjunction with one another. Oftentimes they have compacts. Like take something like the Great Lakes. I'm sure all the Great Lakes stakes have states. Excuse me, have some, you know, compact or mutual agreement about how they're going to do all that stuff. Right. I'm sure that there are. I mean, California, Nevada, Arizona, Right on water and everything else. So, like, these things are possible. And I think that those blue state governors and legislatures really need to start looking. Okay. Like, what are we going to do in the event that something like this happens? And, and let's not sleep on one other thing, Jim, is that, you know, it's even more important that, you know, not only does Trump not run in 2028, but that Democrat gets elected in 2028 because we're going to have a census in 2030. And if he or J.D. vance or somebody like them are in charge, they're going to screw with that so badly that you, you think that gerrymandering is bad now. It's, they're going to, they're going to discount everybody they possibly can as, you know, being a viable citizen. Excuse me, census respondent. So we got a lot of stuff coming down the line, and I think we have to start preparing for it now.
- [48:10]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. If you thought Project 2025 was bad, Project 2029 will blow your mind. I mean, you know, and it starts with a third Trump term. Reed Galen, great to talk you, as always. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. And let's do it again soon. Great insights. Good to see.
- [48:26]
Reed Galen
Thanks for having me.
- [48:27]
Ed Lengel
Okay.
- [48:27]
Jim Acosta
Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, you know, Steve Bannon, you know, he comes out, he's got multi, he wears multiple shirts. I don't know if you, you caught that. He's sort of, it's sort of like he's got the Eagles main going or he thinks he's Jeff Bridges. I don't know what the Big Lebowski. Bannon thinks he's the Big Lebowski. He doesn't have the robe, I, I suppose, but he thinks he's the dude when it comes to this, kind of in the Republican Party and the MAGA wing, or let's face it, the MAGA Republican Party. And when Steve Bannon, folks, and you may be tempted to write this off, when Steve Bannon is talking about a third Trump term, please take it seriously. Every, every Republican, every Democrat, every Independent, every American should take that seriously and, and see it for what it is. That is a threat to American democracy. You want to talk about demolishing part of the White House. If Donald Trump is elected to a third term in violation of the Constitution of the United States, that is demolishing democracy, ladies and gentlemen. That is demolishing America and what we know to be America. America is the Constitution. The Constitution is America. And if, and if Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and these nuts think that they can just mow down the Constitution that they can just knock it down the way that they knocked down the East Wing of the White House. Then. Then we're. We're in a world of hurt. We're going to be in a lot of trouble. And, you know, when, when Steve Bannon talks about Trump being an instrument of divine will, my God, I'm waiting. When he, when he opens his mouth, I'm waiting for the cuckoo bird to come out. It's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Crazy. It's crazy talk. But these are the people and folks. Oh, Steve Bannon. Steve, trust me when I say this. Steve Bannon is still talking to, if not Donald Trump. People in the inner circle, there's no question about it. There's no question about it. And this is what people inside Trump's inner circle think. They think he's a king, they think he's a monarch. They think he's unaccountable. You heard Caroline Levitt in the briefing earlier today. She. She was asked the question, can Donald Trump just knock down any federal building in Washington, D.C. could he knock down a monument? That's what she was asked. She was asked, can he just knock down the Jefferson Memorial? And Caroline Levitt did not say, no, he could not. She, she, they. They seem to think that they can just do whatever they want. And, folks, what. What is that remind you of? Remind you of a king? Remind you of a dictator. And that's what we're up against right now, ladies and gentlemen. And you may think I've spent all week talking about the White House being torn apart, and he has ripped the shit out of the White House. There's no question about it. He's ripped apart the east Wing of the White House, and it's gone. But that, as many people have said, and including the people I talked to down at the White House earlier today, this is. This is very much symbolic of his attitude towards everything that we hold dear in this country, everything that we hold dear. The democratic process, our elections, the idea that the government is accountable to the people, that we are of the people, by the people and for the people. They are doing violence to that as we speak, by tearing down part of the people's house, loading it onto dump trucks and. And dumping it off in some godforsaken place. They're just hauling away right now a piece of our democracy and dumping it, dumping that rubble like it was yesterday's news. What Donald Trump is paving a path for right now, what he is building, what he is constructing right now. And if you listen to what Steve Bannon is saying he's laying the foundation for it. Right now. What they're talking about is building something that is not America. They're talking about raising our democracy, leveling our democracy and replacing it with something else. A Trumpocracy, a thugocracy, a Putin style thugocracy where you just knock down whatever the you want. You knock down whatever building is in your path, you just knock it the down. If there's an amendment to the Constitution that says you can't run for a third term, we're just going to knock that thing down. We don't care if it's, if it's there, if it says you're supposed to do it, we're not going to do it. It's the same thing. Folks, this is, this is an important moment right now. We are a couple of weeks from one year until the November midterms. And you can't just get amped up when everybody says, hey, show up for no Kings days. You, you have to be amped up every day. Every day. You have to pay attention every day. I'm not saying every minute. You got to take a break every now and then. No question about it, walk the dog, have a beer, watch a show, take a load off. But every day you have to devote part of your day to, to keeping an eye on these people. Because what they're doing right now to the White House, they want to do to the rest of us. They want to do to our system of government. They want to do to, to who we are as Americans who believe in a government that is accountable to the people. Donald Trump doesn't believe in that. Donald Trump believes he can just pave over the Constitution. He can just pave over what's left of the East Wing and build something that, that isn't us and build something that doesn't represent us. It's not who we're about. It's not who we are. When I talked to the, the White House historian at the beginning of this program. Listen to the words. I, this is not. And this was a self described, you heard it. He said it a number of times during the interview. This White House historian I spoke with described it a number of times during the interview. He called himself a conservative and he said what Donald Trump is doing to the White House is a slap in the face to the founders of our country. Donald Trump is slapping the founders of this country in the face. And, and think of these corporations who are just going along with it. Let's call these people out. Altria Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen, Caterpillar, Coinbase, Comcast, Jay Pepe and Amelia Fanjule. I don't even know who the that is, but I guess one of our smart viewers probably does. Hard Rock International, Google, hp, Lockheed Martin, Meta Micron, Microsoft, Next Era, Palantir. Hear about Palantir all the time. Ripple, whatever the hell that is. Reynolds American. Is that the. The Aluminum Foil people? I think that's who that is. T Mobile, Tether America. Union Pacific Railroad. The Adelson Family Foundation. Stephen, Stephan E. Brody. Betty Wall Johnson Foundation. Charles and Marissa Cascarilla, Edward and Sherry Glaser, Harold ham, Benjamin Leon Jr. The Lutnick family. The Laura and Isaac Pearl Mutter Foundation. I can't even say it. Stephen A. Schwarzman, Constantine Sokolov. Who the is Constantine Sokolov? Kelly Leffler and Jeff Sprecher. Oh, Kelly Leffler is involved in this. Paolo Tiramani, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, the Facebook guys, they're involved in this shit, too. I've just named them all. This is the list that the White House has provided as to the who the donors are to this, this monstrosity of a ballroom. They should be called out. The White House doesn't belong to you. It belongs to us. The American people. Doesn't belong to the corporations, doesn't belong to the very rich. No matter how many people Donald Trump puts out on that Cheesecake Factory patio that used to be the go. The the Rose Garden. It doesn't belong to the very wealthy. It doesn't belong to the fat cats. It belongs to all of us. And he is treating that place like the dirt that he's hauled out of the east, east wing portion of the White House grounds today. And what Donald Trump is doing to the White House is not just a slap in the face of the founders, it's an. It's a slap in the face to all of us who care about this democracy and everything that we hold dear in this country. Don't let Donald Trump pave over our democracy. Don't let him bulldoze our Constitution. Because everything is at risk at that point. Ladies and gentlemen, my thanks to Ed Lengel and my thanks to Reed Galen for joining me today. Really appreciate it. Thanks to all the folks who I bothered for sound bites down at the White House the last few days. Enjoy talking to those Americans who care very much about the White House too. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Thanks for tuning in. Have a good evening. I'll see you next time. Sam Sa.