
The White House's £225 million ($300 million) makeover looks less like an upgrade and more like a personal monument, and one of America's sharpest satirists says it foretells a perilous end.
On 24 October 2025, Bill Maher used his HBO programme Real Time to excoriate President Donald Trump's demolition of the White House East Wing and the construction of a vast state ballroom, calling the move 'symbolic' of an intent not to leave.