Bill Clinton is not a fan of Trump’s White House renovations
Former Democratic President Bill Clinton has revealed his thoughts about Donald Trump’s White House renovations – and he’s not a fan.
The current president has painted the Oval Office gold and paved over the Rose Garden as he seeks to put his mark on Washington before the end of his second term. He has also built a new helipad and is working on constructing a ballroom that dwarfs the rest of the White House.
But Clinton is not a fan.
“I think Congress made a mistake not protesting turning the Rose Garden into what looks like the entrance to Liberace’s bathroom,” Clinton said at a Democratic campaign event in Hollywood, Florida, this week.
Clinton was referring to the musician popular from the 1950s to the 1970s, known for his bedazzled costumes and glitzy pianos.
Tables with yellow-and-white striped umbrellas — reminiscent of those at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida — fill the concrete patio, a project the president undertook in the summer of 2025.
“This is really the new Rose Garden — look how beautiful it is, with the White stone that matches the White House,” Trump said at an event in July. “This used to be grass, and it was always wet…we had a lot of very upset women that stand [sic] in there with the high heels, and they’d just go down like quicksand.”
The Rose Garden has been an iconic addition to the White House since 1903. It has seen several renovations throughout the years and has been used to host press conferences and other events.
Clinton hosted the leaders of Israel and Jordan at the Rose Garden in 1994 during a trip to sign a peace agreement known as the Washington Declaration.
Clinton was in Florida this week to campaign for former Democratic congressman David Jolly, who is running for governor against Republican Congressman Byron Donalds.
Trump was in Fort Myers, Florida, stumping for Donalds Friday — part of his cross-country tour, in which he calls on his supporters to vote Republican and keep control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
Aside from paving over the Rose Garden, Trump has also demolished the East Wing of the White House to make way for his massive, golden ballroom.
Trump has said it will cost about $400 million to build his dream ballroom and promised he and other donors would pay for it. But the project’s contractor told his administration that the ballroom would cost $600 million, with at least half expected to be covered by taxpayers, The Washington Post reported in June.
The president also wants to build a 250-foot Triumphal Arch at the end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge that would be topped with a golden winged figure flanked by two gilded eagles.
