Although it’s not quite clear if it would be considered charity or a political donation, the White House doesn’t seem particularly interested in Donald Trump’s style of giving.
Trump made an appearance on Rush Limbaugh’s Tuesday radio program, and expressed his dismay that a tent was used for official White House state dinners. He said his brand name real estate all over the country gives him expertise with ballrooms, and offered a solution.
“I’ll give you a little interesting thing, and this is nothing much to even waste your program’s time by saying it, but I notice that the White House gives a lot of balls for people and some should have balls. I mean you look at Britain, if you look at certain places they’ve come through, and you know they’ve been good allies — like we should have balls for them,” Trump said. “And so I have, as you know, because you’re in Palm Beach, I have probably the greatest ballroom, probably in the world. I built it about five years [ago] and it is one of the great ballrooms in all of the world. It’s at the Mar-a- lago Club and I see that at the White House — the White House, Washington, D.C., when a dignitary comes in from India from anywhere, they open up a tent. They have a tent, a tent – a lousy-looking tent, an old rotten tent that frankly, they probably rented – paid a guy millions of dollars for even though it’s worth about $2, OK? So they have a tent for a dignitary that comes in.”
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According to Trump, he was at one point in talks with “one of the biggest people at the White House” to fix this. His offer: To build a $50 to $100 million ballroom for the White House with all the bells and whistles.
“So recently I called up the White House and said, ‘Listen, I’m really good at this stuff. I will build you a magnificent ballroom,’” Trump said. “You know – you go through committees, you know you have all sorts of things with committees. We’ll pick the one they like, the architect, everybody likes. We’ll pick something – we’ll do 10 designs we’ll pick the one that is the greatest, with the greatest architecture. I will build it free. So that’s anywhere from a $50 to a $100 million gift I will give them, and I mean I talking Rush – the first time I’ve said this – I’m talking to the biggest person, one of the biggest people at the White House. I’m not talking to a low-level person, one of the most important people. I will build the White House a ballroom. So when the head of India comes to town, we can give him a five-star dinner in a magnificent ballroom befitting of this country and the White House, right?”
Trump said the offer fell on deaf ears.
“They never got back to me,” Trump said. “It’s a $100 million gift. They never got back to me.”
Limbaugh suggested it was perhaps because of Trump’s political affiliation.
“Whether I’m an Independent, a Republican or a Democrat – they never got back to me,” Trump said. “If I was a Republican, they should do it anyway. They should say Trump’s going to give us $100 million. He’s going to build a ballroom. It’s going to be magnificent. And why wouldn’t they get back to me? That’s the problem with this country. It’s like no common sense.”