Ex-Trump official says ballroom a 'let them eat cake' moment as holidays near

Former Trump Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin warned the timing of President Donald Trump’s lavish ballroom could not have been worse with his government shutdown threatening employees’ food and rent this holiday season.

An ABC News and Washington Post survey revealed this morning that 56 percent of respondents opposed Trump’s destruction of the East Wing in the White House while 45 percent said they “strongly oppose” it.

“The results,” said CNN anchor John Berman, “were pretty glaring.”

“It's going to be leading in the midterms,” Griffin told Berman. “I was skeptical that this would stick because nothing really sticks in the era of Trump, but I think it was two things: It was the optics. It was the Donald Trump said that the East Wing would not be touched. And then we see it being bulldozed in a matter of days.”

“But then there’s the timing,” said Griffen. “We're in a government shutdown right now. You've got federal workers being laid off, you've got unemployment that's too high, you've got inflation ticking up to the point where the fed just gave us another rate cut. It is a moment that feels like ‘let them eat cake.’ He's getting a ballroom and Americans are struggling to make ends meet ahead of the holidays. The timing couldn't have been worse.”

Griffin said she was working for Vice President Mike Pence in the White House during the 2018 shutdown and reported a “sense of urgency in the West Wing” that does not appear to be there this time.

“We have to cut a deal, [they said.] We've got to be talking to Republicans in Congress. We've even got to talk to Democrats. You don't get that sense of urgency [now. The president's been abroad twice now. The vice president's been abroad. They are business as usual,” she said.

She added that she suspected the issue of evaporating SNAP benefits will put “a fire under everyone in D.C.”

“You just owe it to the public again ahead of the holidays. People who are relying on this to meet their basic food needs,” Griffin said.