Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and President Donald Trump traded sharp criticism over the last two days, clashing over the administration’s focus on military readiness, executive travel, and extensive White House construction projects, namely the ballroom.
Speaking Sunday at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Ossoff, a Democrat running for reelection and viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, argued that the president is neglecting key responsibilities of his office.
“While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings,” Ossoff said. “He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
Ossoff’s remarks pointed directly to Trump’s aide, Natalie Harp, as well as to recent overseas travel and facility projects at the executive mansion.
Asked by a reporter on Monday about Ossoff’s claim that he would rather travel with Harp and build a ballroom than handle presidential duties, Trump pushed back directly.
“You mean Pee-wee Herman? Pee-wee Herman lookalike? No, I would much rather do other things,” Trump said. “We’re building a great facility here. We’re fixing a White House that hasn’t been taken care of. You can look at this. This room was a disgraceful situation, the Oval Office, and it was let go. The whole building, the White House, was let go. The exteriors were falling apart. The columns were falling apart. The whole place was a mess.”
Trump further explained that the construction plans expanded well beyond a social hall after discussions with defense officials regarding the security needs of the capital.
“In addition, they’ve been trying to get a ballroom for the last 150 years. And when I said I was going to build a ballroom, the military asked if they could see me,” Trump said. “And they say, sir, we have an opportunity to go down deep into the ground and build a military facility to go with the White House and to go with all of Washington, D.C., which would be so valuable. And then they came up with a drone port on top, which would be a major drone port to protect the White House and all of D.C. And all of those things added up, and it became much more than just a ballroom.”
“And I said to myself, wow, what an opportunity,” Trump added. “I mean, if I was just going to build a ballroom, I could have had it built very quickly because I do these—I build very well and very quickly. We went five stories down into the ground. We did a lot of tremendous things for the military, things that they could never get.”
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