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Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to

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this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon

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to three on wbt Radio in Charlotte. And if you

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subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your

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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for

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your support. So the East Wing demolition and the new

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White House ballroom, this is the this is the national

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local story we all need right now as a as

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a country. Really, I think so it and I call

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it a national local story because we have lived this

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local story repeatedly. It is replicated in jurists all across

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the fruited plane. As a former reporter here at WBT

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LO those many years ago, I would cover the Charlotte

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City Council meetings, and the Charlotte City Council does rezonings

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and development approvals and such. When I did my time

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up in Asheville, working up there for about eight years,

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I would also monitor the Asheville City Council meetings and

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they too would do rezonings and development deals. And now

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upon my return to the City of Asheville or sorry,

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the City of Charlotte, I continue to monitor the Charlotte

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City Council meetings and they still are doing rezonings and developments.

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And what we are watching with the White House ballroom

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project is very, very familiar to me because I have

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witnessed this same argument since two thousand, so for twenty

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five years, I have seen this argument unfold in every

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city that I have ever covered rezonings and developments. Because

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you know, if you take out you know, Orange Hitler,

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you remove Donald Trump from the equation, it's the same arguments.

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Except for the traffic count argument. I've not heard anybody

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make the it's going to increase our traffic. I haven't

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heard that one. But all of the rest of it

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is is the same. Particularly if you've ever, you know,

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had the had the blessings of watching a fight over

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any kind of improvement in a historical district, those things,

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those things are nasty and kind of ridiculous. Like I

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remember one here in Charlotte. It was over the coffee cup.

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That was the name of a place, it's called the

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Coffee Cup, And it was right down the block here

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from the radio station. I had gone into the Coffee

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Cup over the years several times to get one of

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their ridiculously awesome and large morning biscuits. And they somebody,

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a developer came in bought all of the land and

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they were like, we're gonna make a whole bunch of

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you know, mixed use development in there, because at the

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time that was the big thing, mixed use development, retail

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on the ground floor, apartments and up above. And the

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all of a sudden, people that I you know, had

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never seen at city council meetings and never saw again,

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they turned out in order to argue against the Coffee

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Cup moving, which they did. By the way, spoiler alert,

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it was approved. The Coffee Cup did move. The Coffee

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Cup was one of the few places back in I

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think the sixties I'm just going from memory here that

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served that integrated. They served black and white customers. And

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for this they were trying to get it designated as

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a historic site and all of that. But like, we

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don't do that in Charlotte. We tear down the historic

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buildings and we put you know, like a sign up

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or maybe like a like old I don't know, one

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of those bronze placards or whatever, and we sink it

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into the concrete or like on this spot, something happened

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a long time ago, right, And then you know, if

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you walk past it and you stop to read it,

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you will then, you know, be culturally historically enriched. But

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otherwise you could walk around, like all through uptown and

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never really encounter any kind of historic building. And that's

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just the Charlotte way. And I remember I was out

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at a bar one night and talking to a lady

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who was passionate about the coffee cup and did not know, like,

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you know, who I was or what I did. I mean,

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I was a reporter. Nobody knew who I was. So

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I'm out at this bar and she's like going off

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on this, you know, huge tirade about the coffee cup.

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And I asked her at some point, like have you

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have you ever been inside the coffee cup? Have you

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been there? Not to sound all Douglas Murray esque, but

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have you been there? And she had not, and I

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was like, as far as historic buildings go, it's like,

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it's not really a great building. It's not like there's

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some architecture that speaks to you. It's kind of a shack.

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You know, it wasn't not really a great building. And

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so if the coffee cup owners the original owner, oh

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that's right, I think they had sold, so it wasn't

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even the original owners at that point, and so anyway,

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they moved them. And then I think that the whole

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project because the downturn in the economy hit and they

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never actually built the entire project, so they just cleared

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the building and nothing is there as I understand it

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to this day. So I have covered a lot of

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this stuff, and that's what I see. This East Wing

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project at the White House, that's what I see in

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this argument when I'm reading people's outrage. I mean, like, okay,

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ninety nine percent of it is Orange Hitler, you know,

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can't stand Donald Trump. Anything he does is awful, and

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so we're against it, and they're just trying to find

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all of these these things to support their pre existing anger. Right.

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You have sort of this nimby attitude, a sort of

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not in my backyard. There's this anti development, anti progress,

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I call it that. And so you've got that side

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of it, and then on the other side, you've got

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a I don't want to say progressive, but a more

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pro progress kind of a mentality, but an improvement mentality,

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a builder mentality, and that is often these these are

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the things that are often at odds in these types

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of these types of development. And this is I think

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a very important moment for us to as a nation

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to accept the idea that building new and beautiful things

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that are needed is good. It's a good thing. Like

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you've probably heard people lament like we used to build

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stuff in America, right, And I know it's just a ballroom,

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and I know it's Donald Trump, and so you gotta

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hate the project because you hate the developer. I understand that.

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But if you step back for a moment, what was

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the need that precipitated the project. It's that the White

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House doesn't have a ballroom to hold events in to

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the point where they have to set up these tents

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out on the lawn. Whenever they have like members of

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foreign countries coming to visit the White House for a

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state dinner, they're doing some you know, big party or

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something for important people, and they got to pitch a tent.

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And they've been doing that for decades now. I understand

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there are some people in big tent in the tent industry,

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that are probably not too keen on this project either,

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because it will render their services obsolete theyrrelevant. They are

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irrelevant at this point then, right, don't need your tense anymore.

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But setting that industry aside, what is the rational argument

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against having a secure building for these types of events?

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And I can find none, And so that's why you

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get all of these stand in arguments that are used

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to try to make the case that why you're opposed

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to it isn't really why you're opposed to it. You know,

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stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things,

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to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of

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our past while transcending generations. They help us process the

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Who you are, visit creative video dot com. All right,

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so let me start with the the MSNBC write up

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on the East Wing demolition. Okay, this is by a

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guy named Hayes Brown, a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily.

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He used to work at BuzzFeed. So yeah, he says

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that it's absurd. He says it's potential unethical. Okay. Former

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officials and historical experts were appalled at Donald Trump and

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hence at the images. Actually, I just threw that part

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in there about Donald Trump. That's really what drives a

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lot of this. They hate Trump and so therefore what

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he's doing is wrong. So they're appalled at the images

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of demolition equipment ripping through the White House's East wing

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when they were first published by The Washington Post this week.

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The outcry only grew as the rapid renovation spread further,

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not merely taking down the facade outside the East Wing,

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but tearing haphazardly into the building. Yeah, it's called a demo.

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Have you ever seen a demolition of a building? Once

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everything that they want to save is out of the building,

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it's really just a process of ripping the whole thing down.

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Like I'm not sure, Like, did you expect people out

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there with screwdrivers, you know, undoing every screw you know,

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using a crowbar and peeling off every piece of wood

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to to preserve the wood. It's just absurd, It's absurd,

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he says. A White House official confirmed that the plan

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is now to raise the whole structure, rather than tagging

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on the ballroom as an addition. Now, by the way,

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this is apparently a lie that media made off of

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a mistake. So media reporters at a White House briefing

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from months ago, they messed up. They thought that a

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question from a reporter was spoken by the White House

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Press Secretary, Caroline Levette or Levitt, and she did not

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say that a reporter asked it, And so the AP

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then put out their story back in July, saying that

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it would that the East Wing would not be demolished,

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but she didn't say that. The AP has since corrected

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the record as of two days ago. But there's this

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belief that Trump is now doing something that he didn't

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say he was going to do. They did, They showed

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you the plans. He's been walking around with those plans

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for months and it includes the removal of the East

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Wing offices that everybody's now freaking out because we can

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see the demolition occurring now. He says, it's true that

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there have been several major overhauls to the Executive Mansion.

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That's the main part of the White House, right, So

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the Executive Mansion is in the center, that's what everybody

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thinks of when they think of the White House. And

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then you've got these two sort of annex buildings off

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to the sides. One's the West Wing, one's the East Wing,

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and then they're connected with the Colonnade a little sort

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of open air breezeway that goes between so you can

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walk between the buildings when it's raining. But the project

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Trump has undertaken is on another level, entirely because he

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is the worst ever. I added that last part. The

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East Wing and the West Wing are not original they

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were added later. Both of them originated during President Teddy

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Roosevelt's administration. The West Wing was originally a temporary structure

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to house the growing presidential staff and keep him away

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from the residences. The construction required destroying the Victorian era

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conservatory greenhouses that previously occupied the grounds, and at the time,

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the pearl clutching was off the charts from The Washington

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Times nineteen o two. Unfortunately, the West Terrace ends in

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an awful blot on the landscape the new temporary offices

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for the president. It is to be hoped the temporary

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does not mean a temporizing with the American people to

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tied over their first wrath and then perpetuate the hideous

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little dog house as a permanent thing. Yeah. See this

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is new, right, this is never new. It's like, oh,

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this thing exists, so I don't We don't need it anymore.

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It's obsolete, it's falling apart. Whatever, We're going to tear

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it down. No, you can't tear it down. Oh I

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hate the way the new thing looks. They were saying

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that about the West Wing. The East Wing began life

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as an entryway for Teddy Roosevelt's guests, to make their

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way through a corridor to the residents with a long

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cloak room for coats and hats. Not really needed so

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much any longer, right, I mean, yes, some coats, but

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with you know, climate control in vehicles and in the building,

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you don't really need that much room for coats anymore,

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and definitely not hats, except of course, if you're hosting

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like a Kentucky Derby party. But his great nephew FDR

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would later augment the structure starting in nineteen forty two,

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adding a second story and more office space. The expansion

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was done mostly to cover up the secret construction of

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a bunker underneath the White House in case Germany's long

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range missile program was ever able to reach Washington. Since then,

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it has or had become the public facing arm of

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the White House, with the first floor devoted to tours

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and the second floor populated with the office of the

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First Lady and her staff. By the way, when Truman

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was president, he and his wife had to move out

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of the White House for like three years the actual

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mansion itself because it was collapsing. They gutted the entire interior. Okay,

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the only thing that remained was the exterior stonework. That's it.

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Everything inside got gutted during Truman's presidency. And when he

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got back in after being out for three years, he

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comes back in and he's like five and a half

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million dollars, which in today's dollars like seventy million. He's like,

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I could have done it for half that price, which

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is again, that's like every single argument against any kind

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of development like this, Oh I, they have to spend

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so much money, Like this is every hoa Facebook page.

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Scott Adams the creator of the Dilbert cartoon series. He

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does he also does a podcast, and he talked a

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little bit about this. I think this was from yesterday's show. Yeah,

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he talked a little bit about this yesterday on his

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podcast about the demolition of the East Wing. And here's

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what you know. Here, here's what he had to say.

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Speaker 2: Is there even one person in the United States who's

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being impacted by the ballroom. Anybody, are you guys okay?

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There's a ballroom being built. Everybody okay. And in order

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to build the ballroom, they're going to do that, they

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have to knock down the building that was there. Are

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you all okay? Did anybody get knocked down when they

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knocked down the building? You're all okay? I was told

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this to be an emergency. It would be a problem.

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All right, I'm glad you're okay.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I don't understand why people are freaking out

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about this so much, except that it's Donald Trump and

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Trump arrangement syndrome. The White House said that it's going

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to submit the ballroom plans to the National Capitol Planning

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Commission for review, but the announcement was made only after

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the demo had already begun. Classic developer move, right, you

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tear it all down, and it's like, well, I mean,

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I guess we could walk away, which I guess is

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what a couple out of Virginia are asking a court

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to do. They have gone to court to try to

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block Trump from proceeding with demolition of the East Wring. Guys,

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I think you were a little late to the courthouse.

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Charles and Judith Voorhees filed the motion in federal court

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late yesterday, asking a judge to halt any further damage

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to the White House. There's nothing left. It's all torn down.

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I mean, not the whole White House, just that building

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on the east side, the East Wing offices. It seeks

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a temporary restraining order against the demolition, arguing it is

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taking place without legally required approvals or reviews. Yeah. The

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problem is that one of the laws that they're going

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to be citing here, the National Historic Preservation Act, it

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actually contains an explicit exemption for the White House. So yeah,

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I mean, good try, I guess on you guys with

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the lawsuit. Back to the MSNBC writer, while not as

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psychologically damaging as the slide into authoritarianism that Trump has unleashed,

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the gaudy, gilded monstrosity that may eventually be attached to

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the People's House will serve as a reminder of how

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much his influence will be felt long after he is gone.

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And that's the problem. That's the problem. They all know

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that ballroom once it's built with private donations. By the way,

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it's not even costing taxpayers any money. That thing is

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not going to go anywhere. That ballroom will now be

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a part of the White House until there is no

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longer a White House, right, and that's what's got them upset.

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Trump has left a mark on the White House, and

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that's what has them so ticked off. Miranda Divine at

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the New York Post saying trump arrangement critics of his big,

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beautiful ballroom are losing their minds over his beautification of

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the White House. Suddenly the people who cheered on as

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bandal revolutionaries, toppled statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln,

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or tore down Confederate monuments, now they are the ardent

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preservers of American history. Hillary Clinton tweeted, it's not his house.

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Of course, her best known contribution to the White House

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was making off with about twenty eight thousand dollars worth

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of furniture when she and Bill moved out, builded other

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things at the People's House that we'll just leave that there.

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The ballroom is a historic and well overdue enhancement of

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the White House, and it's not costing taxpayers any money

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well to build, Like once it's built, then you're going

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to have, you know, the ongoing maintenance cost and all

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that there will also be a reinforced attack proof steel roof,

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and all sorts of other national security enhancements that have

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long been on the wish list of the US military,

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which Trump hinted during a meeting with Theocretary General of

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NATO in the Oval Office, saying that the military is

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very much involved in the planning here. As a seasoned

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property developer, Trump knows you never give naysayers time to complain.

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That's why they moved so fast, right. Trump's beautification and

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improvement projects at the White House really are a metaphor

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for what he is attempting for the country as a whole.

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She says. For instance, he takes personal pride in the

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restoration of Washington, d C. Since he announced his crime crackdown.

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He equates civic beauty with law and order, something his

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critics cannot understand. If you want to understand Trump's mindset,

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the big vision statesman and detail freak perfectionist, you have

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to read the book Under Siege, written by Trump's son Eric,

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a chip off the old block in every way except

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for the love of the limelight, and what comes through

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in that book, she says, is his father's passion for

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building and creating. He talks about how his dad put

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him to work on the construction projects and like manual labor,

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walking around with you know, wheelbarrows full of materials and

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stuff taught him the value of a dollar. Trump also

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taught his son to love and appreciate craftsmanship and the

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people who are capable of creating something beautiful with their hands.

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He tells a story. I saw an interview with Eric

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Trump about this, and he tells a story of they

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were driving down the road one day. This was decades ago.

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Eric Trump is a little kid and he sees some

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guy on the side of the road and he's doing

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some stone work. So Trump tells the driver stop the car.

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The limo, probably stop the limo. Trump gets out with

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Eric and he starts talking to this stonemason and the

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guy is from Italy and he's admiring the work and

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they're talking about the stone work and all of that,

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and Trump ends up hiring that guy to do all

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the stone work for all of his buildings after that.

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Trump is a builder. He built skylines, resorts and businesses,

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and he built a family. According to Eric Trump, and

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now the president is putting that passion for building beautiful

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things into restoring America. Right. Destruction is easy, as you

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saw with the East Wing office building. Right, it's easy.

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You could tear stuff down pretty quickly. But creation, particularly

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creating things of beauty that, in my opinion, is an

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expression of the divine through man. Right, building beautiful buildings,

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whether they were churches hundreds of years ago, right, or

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or government buildings that still stand today in the classic architecture,

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which is by the way, going to be They hired

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I don't know the architect's name, but they hired somebody

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who has done a bunch of churches and so like

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they're going to keep that same architectural esthetic. It's going

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to look like a beautiful part of the building. And

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part of me wonders if that's what's got people upset

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to because building beautiful things is a manifestation of the divine,

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and I just kind of wonder if people don't like

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to be reminded of that. All Right, if you're listening

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00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:39,920
to this show, you know I try to keep up

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00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:41,720
with all sorts of current events, and I know you

399
00:26:41,759 --> 00:26:44,240
do too, And you've probably heard me say get your

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00:26:44,279 --> 00:26:48,160
news from multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you

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00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,160
detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed

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00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:54,960
with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website,

403
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,759
and it combines news from around the world in one place,

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00:26:57,759 --> 00:27:01,079
so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can

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00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:05,839
check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete.

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00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,519
I put the link in the podcast description too. I

407
00:27:08,559 --> 00:27:11,160
started using ground News a few months ago and more

408
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,759
recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because

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00:27:13,799 --> 00:27:17,079
it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and

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00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,319
by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories

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00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,400
get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself.

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00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:28,160
Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that

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00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,200
link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I

414
00:27:31,319 --> 00:27:34,640
use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

415
00:27:34,839 --> 00:27:37,599
Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it

416
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,799
also supports ground News as they make the media landscape

417
00:27:40,799 --> 00:27:45,119
more transparent. Here's the peak tweet from Holly, who says,

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00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,279
I can't imagine the shape the East Wing actually was

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00:27:48,319 --> 00:27:53,799
in after all the piecemeal repairs and renovations over the years. Yeah,

420
00:27:53,799 --> 00:27:59,279
I mean. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt pointed out two reporters

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think yesterday, Like you're sitting in the press briefing room

422
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:08,000
which used to be the swimming pool. This was a pool.

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Presidents have done this stuff to the White House since

424
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there was a White House, right, Okay, since the British

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burned it down. But yeah, after that, okay, Alan, welcome

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00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:19,720
to the program.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Alan, Hey Pete, how you doing?

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00:28:22,839 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: Man?

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00:28:23,039 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 3: I really appreciate this. Come appreciate this conversation you're having here.

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I'm a I'm a I've got a fab shop and

431
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,160
I make decorative things out of copper and brass and

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stainless and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: Nice.

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Speaker 3: And if it's worth part of my life to build

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00:28:43,759 --> 00:28:48,640
a pro in every pod project, every single project has

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00:28:48,759 --> 00:28:49,839
part of my life in it.

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00:28:50,039 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: Yep.

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00:28:51,119 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 3: So if if it's going to be in an item

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00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,440
that somebody has assigned serious value to, it has to

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00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:05,279
be adorned. It's not optional. And the way I look

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00:29:05,319 --> 00:29:08,839
at things, and regrettably, I think so many people in

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00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:18,960
our society today have bought into these isms like there

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00:29:19,039 --> 00:29:22,799
is no value to this ornamental construction.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So one example I would give you is the

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difference between say, the US Capitol Building versus the North

446
00:29:30,599 --> 00:29:33,400
Carolina General Assembly Building, and if you've never seen the

447
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,119
General Assembly buildings. It's just like they're two boxes, they're

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00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:40,000
just squares. They were built in like the sixties and seventies,

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and just like a lot of the architecture, particularly government

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00:29:44,359 --> 00:29:48,240
architecture at the time, it was just stripped of all

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00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:50,559
of its soul, the architecture, and then they throw some

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00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,279
pieces of quote artwork out on the front lawn which

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00:29:54,319 --> 00:29:58,039
also don't have any intrinsic beauty in them, and it

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00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,759
doesn't speak to anything in the soul. And that's what

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00:30:02,039 --> 00:30:07,440
that's what beautiful works of architecture. H And as you

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00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:09,799
call it adornment, which is a great term, it's like

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that's that's what you're supposed to be conjuring up. Like

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00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,640
you said, it's like your time is a unit of

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your life that you are trading off to create this thing.

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You don't get any more time, and so that is

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00:30:23,279 --> 00:30:26,640
a it's a limited resource that you are trading to

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00:30:26,759 --> 00:30:29,680
create something. Why not make it beautiful?

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Speaker 3: That's and that's you know, I don't know, but with

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00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:37,880
the number of people that you deal with, the most

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00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:45,240
powerful word that I've learned to use is know, And

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00:30:45,279 --> 00:30:46,519
I should have learned it years ago.

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00:30:48,079 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: Well, all right, Allan. I appreciate the call man. Have

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00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,440
a great weekend, you do, all right? Take care now. Yeah,

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I think there are a lot of people that are

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worried that this is going to look like Trump Tower, right,

471
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I did see Yea. Walter sent me the photo like

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00:30:59,799 --> 00:31:03,640
this AI generated image of Trump Tower on the East Lawn.

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That's not what it's going to be, but that's I

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think what a lot of these lefties think it's going

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00:31:09,599 --> 00:31:14,920
to look like, which is just silly. It's just silly.

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00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,000
All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you

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00:31:18,079 --> 00:31:20,039
so much for listening. I could not do the show

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00:31:20,079 --> 00:31:22,599
without your support and the support of the businesses that

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00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,759
advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support

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00:31:25,799 --> 00:31:27,440
them too and tell them you heard it here. You

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00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,119
can also become a patron at my Patreon page or

482
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:33,839
go to thepetecallnershow dot com. Again, thank you so much

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00:31:33,839 --> 00:31:40,319
for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.