Trump to ballroom architect: “I am the code”

“I am the code.” 

So said President Trump to the first architect working on the new White House ballroom being built on the ruins of the building’s East Wing, scoffing at his concerns over possible fire, health, and safety violations. The architect, James McCrery II, left the construction project last October after Trump repeatedly ignored his warnings in favor of a preliminary design the president preferred, according to a Washington Post investigation released Wednesday. 

Building codes, the president claimed, don’t apply to the White House. That’s wrong. Federal agencies are required to follow federal standards unless it would “adversely affect national security,” as the Post reports and as multiple items of congressional legislation establish. The president’s argument: the Executive Residence, the president’s home and workplace in the White House, is not bound by the same rules as the rest of the White House.

As funny as it is to imagine Trump delivering the line like Sylvester Stallone declaring “I am the law!” in Judge Dredd, the president’s reported tunnel vision with respect to the ballroom is one more episode in a series of ego-fueled beautification endeavors costing taxpayers millions of dollars: the Reflecting Pool, the Triumphal Arch—the list goes on. 

And as I wrote back in June, many of these construction projects seem to follow a similar playbook: they inevitably go awry, exhibit the building version of Mar-a-Lago face, or lead to unfulfilled promises by Trump (often all of the above). After some private dealing—including a $500-million no-bid contract—a federal appeals court ruling that the administration must stop construction due to a lack of congressional approval, and now a reportedly sweeping disregard for health and safety in a building supposedly required for “national security,” the ballroom may become the shining example.