'Destroying everything': Ex-GOP rep launches profane rant against Trump's ballroom

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) didn't mince words when asked to give his thoughts on President Donald Trump tearing down part of the White House as part of his proposed ballroom project.

On Tuesday, Walsh — who was initially elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010 before officially switching his party affiliation to Democratic earlier this year — joined former CNN host Jim Acosta on his Substack show to talk about Trump demolishing a portion of the White House's East Wing (which houses the First Lady's office) to make way for his planned $250 million, 90,000 square-foot ballroom.

"We talk about the damage Trump has done. OK, he decimated USAID. Well, a lot of this stuff we can fight maybe to try to get back," Walsh said. "But there's the White House, those walls that have come down, the East Wing that has been demolished, it's kind of like, that can't come back."

"This jack—— in the f—— White House is destroying a permanent structure that can't come back," Walsh added. "He can't do this on his own! There's a rigorous, rigorous process to mess with the restructuring, structural changes of the White House, and he just blows right through all of that!"

Acosta pointed out that typically, any physical changes to historic government property has to go through the National Parks Service, to make sure any proposed renovations stay true to the historic nature of the building in question. He also scoffed at Trump's promise that the ballroom's cost would be both within the $250 million figure and that it wouldn't be funded by tax dollars. Walsh agreed, and said that while he was "profoundly sad" about the state of the White House, he proposed that the next Democratic president make a public promise to do to Trump's ballroom what Trump did to the East Wing.

"I'm probably not running for president in '28, but I'd be out there screaming right now, 'my first act as president, I'm gonna take a f—— bulldozer to that ballroom of his. I mean, immediately!" Walsh said.

"Why isn't every potential Democratic leader out there, who might run, saying that?" Walsh continued. I said that, if I'm elected president, I will opening up the White Houser to the entire country, the first weekend I'm president, and I'll invite every American with their sledgehammers and their crowbars, and let's tear that f—— ballroom down!"

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this ballroom," Acosta said, referencing the famous quote from former President Ronald Reagan.

"Tear down that ballroom! Oh my God," Walsh emphasized.

Watch the segment below:

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