Donald Trump has often been dubbed a political wrecking ball for his unorthodox style — and now the US president has literally started demolition work on the White House.Work crews began tearing down part of the East Wing on Monday as the former property mogul said work had formally commenced on a huge new $250-million ballroom.A mechanical excavator had ripped through the facade of the East Wing, leaving a tangle of broken masonry, rubble and steel wires, AFP journalists at the scene saw.Republican Trump said as he hosted college baseball players at the White House on Monday that “right on the other side you have a lot of construction that you might hear occasionally.”The 79-year-old billionaire later officially announced that work had started on the ballroom, the biggest addition to the US presidential mansion in more than a century.”I am pleased to announce that ground has been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.Trump said the East Wing was being “fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!”The East Wing is where US first ladies have traditionally had their offices. The president works in the West Wing and the couple live in the Executive Mansion.- ‘Generous Patriots’ -But while Trump said that the East Wing is “completely separate from the White House itself,” it is in fact physically joined to the main mansion by a covered colonnade.Trump says the new 90,000-square-foot ballroom with a capacity of 1,000 people is needed to host large state dinners and other events that currently have to be held in a tent.The former reality TV star held a glitzy dinner at the White House last week for donors to the ballroom. The guests included representatives from tech firms like Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft and Palantir and defense giant Lockheed Martin — all companies with significant contracts or other dealings with the government.They also included twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of crypto platform Gemini, who were made famous as jilted investors in the movie “The Social Network” about the birth of Facebook.”The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly. This Ballroom will be happily used for Generations to come!” he said on Monday.It is the largest part of the huge makeover Trump has given the White House since returning to power in January, including covering the Oval Office with gold decor and paving over the Rose Garden.Trump has also unveiled plans for a huge triumphal arch in Washington, which was dubbed the “Arc de Trump” after AFP first revealed the proposal.

A US appeals court said Monday that President Donald Trump can send National Guard troops to Portland, despite objections from Oregon’s governor.The ruling is the latest step in a battle pitting the White House against liberal states who have pushed back against what they characterize as Trump’s authoritarian over-reach and a creeping militarization of US society.”After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority” when he federalized the state’s National Guard, the Ninth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals said.The ruling clears the way for 200 National Guard personnel to be deployed to protect federal buildings, where authorities say protestors — many dressed in animal costumes — are impeding immigration enforcement.Portland, along with Chicago, became the latest flashpoints in the Trump administration’s rollout of raids, following the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, Washington and Memphis.In such raids, groups of masked, armed men in unmarked cars or armored vehicles target residential neighborhoods and businesses.The state of Oregon took the administration to court to try to prevent its forces being used, obtaining a stay from a lower court that prevented any boots on the ground while the matter was decided.Monday’s decision — by two out of the three justices on the appeals panel — overturns the stay.Trump has repeatedly called Portland “war-ravaged” and riddled with violent crime. But in her original ruling granting the stay, US District Judge Karin Immergut dismissed his comments as “simply untethered to the facts.”Although the city has seen scattered attacks on federal officers and property, the Trump administration failed to demonstrate “that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole,” Immergut wrote.Protests in Portland did not pose a “danger of rebellion” and “regular law enforcement forces” could handle such incidents, Immergut said.Circuit Judge Susan Graber, dissenting from the ruling released Monday, said the administration’s seizing of Oregon’s National Guard — a force usually under the control of the state’s governor — was a dangerous erosion of constitutional rights.”Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, as merely absurd,” she wrote.”But today’s decision is not merely absurd. It erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions.”Oregon’s Attorney General Dan Rayfield called for an immediate “en banc” hearing — a gathering of the most senior judge on the circuit and 10 other justices, who could override Monday’s judgment.”Today’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification. We are on a dangerous path in America,” he said.Governor Tina Kotek said she wanted to hear from Trump exactly what he expected National Guard troops to do in a city where people protest peacefully.”The Trump Administration is being dishonest, and these actions to deploy troops are a gross, un-American abuse of power,” she said.