Donald Trump is facing obstacles everywhere he looks in his plans to turn Washington DC into a gaudy monument to himself – not least of which is a federal judge blocking his ballroom
Donald Trump is facing obstacles everywhere he looks in his plans to turn Washington DC into a gaudy monument to himself.
His plan for a vast vanity ballroom on the side of the White House has been derailed by the small matter of it being illegal. And a short walk away, plans for his 250 foot tall “Triumphal Arch” – known locally as the Arc De Trump – have hit some serious objections, mainly because it’s enormous, hideous and for some reason has lions on it, which are not indigenous to the United States. Who knows whether either plan will ever see the light of day, which is presumably one of the reasons Trump has been so keen to skip town and visit somewhere he’s more comfortable – Vegas, baby. Trump is there to big up his “no tax on tips” policy, which is understandably popular with a lot of local workers. Fun fact about Vegas – there are so many people working in the service industries there that the streets around the strip have a third rush hour between midnight and 1am, when casino shifts change. The other thing Vegas has a lot of, which Trump doesn’t seem so keen to talk about is undocumented workers. If Trump carried out his promise of mass deportations in Sin City, it would most likely sink into the desert.
Meanwhile, in Trumpworld
- Trump says his ballroom is ‘essential to national security’
- He suggests Epstein victims ‘or whatever’ don’t want to testify, actually
- He might go to Pakistan
- He continues to beef with the Pope
- RFK Jr cut the penis off a raccoon for science
Here’s what you need to know
1. Trump says his ballroom is “essential to national security”
A federal judge has declared Trump’s plan to build an insanely huge vanity ballroom on what used to be the East Wing of the White House without Congressional approval to be unlawful. Obviously. And Trump is hopping mad about jt. A Truth Social post starts by claiming “presidents have desperately wanted” a ballroom for 150 yesrs, a claim for which there is no evidence. It goes on to declare District Judge Richard Leon a “Trump hater”, which may be true, but he was appointed by a Republican president – George W Bush. He goes on to ask why this is all coming up now, rather than in the planning stages – the answer to which is “because you repeatedly lied about what the plans were and nobody worked it out until you demolished the East Wing overnight.” But by far the most entertaining part of this Trump tantrum, is where he lets slip a whole list of things that are planned for the basement underneath the ballroom that I’d have thought the secret service wouldn’t want the world to know about…
It’s set to feature: “Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations, Structures, and Equipment, Protective Missile Resistant Steel, Columns, Roofs, and Beams, Drone Proof Ceilings and Roofs, Military Grade Venting, and Bullet, Ballistic, and Blast Proof Glass —which all means that no future President, living in the White House without this Ballroom, can ever be Safe and Secure at Events, Future Inaugurations, or Global Summits.” There had been widespread speculation on the subject of what is going to be in the cavernous basement in the plans for the new ballroom. And now we know, it will be not one but plural “Top Secret Military Installations”. Great work there Mr President. That’ll keep the Russkies guessing. It’s also worth noting that Trump in 2025 was the first President for decades to hold his inauguration indoors, and the only reason he didn’t have it on the steps of the Capitol Building was that it was cold.
2. Trump claims Epstein victims “or whatever” don’t want to testify under oath
More than a week on, the President finally responded to Melania Trump’s bizarre, unprompted speech denying ever having had anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein, or having been introduced to her husband by America’s most notorious paedophile. In the baffling televised speech, Mrs Trump demanded Congressional hearings be organised so that his many survivors could tell their stories in public. Asked whether he agreed, Trump said: “I’m OK with it. I mean, we’ve had a lot of public hearings, but… I understand that the women didn’t want to go under oath. That’s what I heard. That the women, the victims or whatever, they refused to go under oath which was a little surprising. Melania felt strongly about it because she was accused that I met her through Epstein, but it turned out to be totally false.”
This is, of course, nonsense. One group of survivors did criticise the First Lady for “shifting the blame” onto them, adding that Congress should focus on forcing, for example, Former Attorney General Pam Bondi, or perhaps Epstein’s friend of more than a decade Donald J Trump to testify. But others have indicated they were very much willing to testify.
3. Trump might go to Pakistan
Before boarding Marine One en route to a tax roundtable in Vegas, Trump claimed progress is being made in talks with Iran and suggested he could be involved in the signing of a peace agreement, if one is reached.
“If the deal is signed in Islamabad, I might go,” said Trump, who heaped praise on Pakistani Prime Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistani Army General Asim Munir for their role as mediators in the US-Iran talks. “The field marshal has been great. The prime minister has been really great in Pakistan, so I might go. They want me.”
4. Trump’s beef with the Pope is a hill on which he is willing to die
Trump said he isn’t worried that his taunting of Pope Leo XIV might offend his voters. “I have to do what’s right — the pope has to understand that,” he told reporters. “I have nothing against the pope. His brother is MAGA all the way.”
5. RFK Jr cut off a raccoon’s penis for “research”
Robert F Kennedy Jr once stopped his family car in the middle of a highway so he could get out and cut the penis off a raccoon, it has been claimed. While his children waited inside the vehicle, RFK Jr, who is now America’s Health Secretary, removed the animal’s genitals “for study.” The claim emerged in a new book, RFK Jr: The Fall and Rise, which is based on diaries allegedly written by RFK Jr and obtained by the author. “I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be,” Kennedy is claimed to have written in an entry from 2001. “My Kids waited patiently in the car.” Kennedy of course, has a long and storied history with roadkill, most notably when he stuffed a roadkill bear cub in the boot of his car, left it there all day and eventually dumped it in Central Park, trying to make it look like a bike accident had killed it.
READ MORE: RFK Jr ‘cut off raccoon genitals’ on side of road for study while children waited in car