Trump Gets Up, Walks Away From Meeting To Stare Out Window At Ballroom

US President Donald Trump got so excited about the construction on his increasingly costly new White House ballroom that he got up from a meeting with oil executives on Friday to stare out the window at it.

“Unusual time to look, but I figured we might as well,” Trump said to light chuckles from the room. His 30-plus guests, which included executives from Exxon and Chevron, stayed seated as Trump stood for around 20 seconds to admire the progress.

The president brought up the ballroom while complaining about how small current White House meeting rooms are, saying Friday’s gathering would have had room for “over 1,000 people” were it held in the ballroom.

“Come to think of it – wow. I gotta look at this myself,” Trump said as he turned to look out the window behind him, then got up to marvel at the project.

“Wow, what a view. This is the door to the ballroom,” he told his guests.

When he sat back down, he chattered more about – you guessed it – the ballroom.

“You see a very big foundation that’s moving. We’re ahead of schedule in the ballroom and under budget,” he said.

The White House originally projected in July that the project, which required him to tear down the East Wing, would cost $200 million in donated funds. But last month, Trump said it would cost twice that.

Donors identified by the White House include Trump himself and several big tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Coinbase and Meta.

“I don’t think there’ll be anything like it in the world, actually,” Trump told the oil executives on Friday.

“The ballroom will seat many,” he continued, “and it’ll also take care of the inauguration, with bulletproof glass, drone-proof ceilings and everything else, unfortunately, that today you need.”