Fox News commentator challenged by host as she takes shock stance on White House renovation 'it is a little jarring'
Fox News political commentator Lisa Boothe was a guest on Harris Faulkner's The Faulkner Focus on October 24. They talked about the controversy and criticism of Donald Trump demolishing the White House East Wing
Fox News host Harris Faulkner called into question a remark the network's political analyst Lisa Boothe said in regards to Donald Trump's demolition of the East Wing.
The contributor was a guest on Harris' The Faulkner Focus on Thursday, October 24. During her time on the show, they discussed the controversy surrounding Trump's construction project to turn the White House East Wing into the White House State Ballroom. The controversy fully sparked when photos of the East Wing's demolition were shown on Monday, October 20. Lisa began by defending Trump's decision.
"This isn't for him - these changes - this is for the country and future presidents as well. He won't be in the White House forever so these changes he is making is for the country and for the future," she stated, in response to a montage of clips of criticism Trump has received from Democrats.
"Look, we are used to Trump Derangement Syndrome at this point. Everything Trump does, Democrats have to be against it. He joked he could curse cancer and they would be against it." Lisa added.
However, she then stated that she could see why people are upset about the construction, "That being said, it is a little jarring to see the demolition done to the East Wing. So I can see how some people might be offended by that or might have some issue with that."
Harris quickly interjected, not seeming to share the same perspective as Lisa, and said, "Do you think most people know the difference between the East and West Wing?"
Lisa answered back, "They probably don't if we're being honest, Harris." She went on to continue defending Trump's actions by mentioning a point he made about past presidents making changes to the White House.
She also named the law of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which says the White House and a few other buildings are exempt from going through a formal review process before a project on historic properties is approved.
While the White House may be exempt, Priya Jain, who serves as Chair of the Heritage Conservation Committee of the Society of Architectural Historians, noted that even previous renovations have gone through the process, even though it's not required.
She told PBS' News Hour, "Despite the exemption, previous studies done at the White House with the involvement of the National Park Service note that, even though this formal process is not required, the NPS staff tried to adhere to this process to the best extent as possible."
"And in prior projects that have been much smaller in scale, it appears that these internal consultations and advice from the National Park Service and other agencies has been sought before the project was initiated and executed," she added.
Back in July, Trump had announced the construction of a 90,000 square-foot ballroom and said that it would not "interfere with the current building." Recently, on Wednesday, October 22, he told the press that "in order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure."
Trump gave another update on another change to the construction, which is that it would now cost $300 million, in comparison to the $200 million initially said in July. He insisted that he and private donors would be paying for the project.
The White House made a statement that they intend to submit their plans to the National Capital Planning Commission despite already demolishing the East Wing. They claim that they do not need the NCPC approval for demolition, "only for vertical construction," per the Guardian.