Conservatives and Trump supporters were quick to remind former first lady Hillary Clinton about her 2021 furniture controversy with former President Bill Clinton as she attempted to lambaste President Donald Trump for constructing a ballroom at the White House.
‘At least he didn’t steal the silverware,’ Texas Sen. Ted Cruz posted to X Tuesday lambasting Clinton.
Clinton’s X post quickly set off condemnation from conservatives reflecting on the 2001 furniture controversy, when the Clintons took an estimated $28,000 in White House furnishings provided by donors and paid $86,000 to the federal government for other gifts they received.
‘Gifts did not leave the White House without the approval of the White House usher’s and curator’s offices,’ the Clintons said in a 2001 statement. ‘Of course, if the White House now determines that a cataloging error occurred … any item in question will be returned.’
‘All of these items were considered gifts to us,’ Hillary Clinton added at the time. ‘That’s what the permanent record of the White House showed. . . . But if there is a different intent, we will certainly honor the intention of the donor.’
Trump announced Monday that construction had begun on the ballroom, following months of the president floating the planned project to modernize the White House. The project does not cost taxpayers and is privately funded, the White House reported.
The 90,000-square-foot ballroom project is expected to accommodate approximately 650 seated guests, according to the White House.
‘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 Truth Social. ‘Completely separate from the White House itself, the East Wing is being fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!’
Photos of the demolition crew dismantling the East Wing’s facade circulated on social media and in news reports. Clinton responded to the construction in a message rallying voters against Trump’s project.
‘It’s not his house,’ Hillary Clinton wrote on X Tuesday morning. ‘It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.’
The social media post included a screenshot of The Washington Post’s report, ‘White House begins demolishing East Wing Facade to build Trump’s ballroom,’ accompanied by a photo of a demolition crew.
Other Clinton critics pointed to former President Bill Clinton’s sex scandal with an intern in their responses on social media, and others rehashed the Lincoln Bedroom controversy.
Bill Clinton and his administration fell under scrutiny in the 1990s for hosting donors for overnight stays at the White House, specifically the Lincoln Bedroom, allegedly in exchange for campaign donations. The then-president denied selling out the room for donations.
‘Yes, between selling nights in the Lincoln bedroom to donors and her husband’s tutelage of the interns in the Oval Office, if anyone treated the WH as sacred it was the Clintons,’ conservative writer Mark Hemingway wrote on X.
‘The ballroom will be spectacular… unlike your work in Haiti,’ Eric Trump shot back at Clinton.
‘Hi Hillary, Remind us, wasn’t it you who walked off with $28,000 in White House furniture when you moved out?’ conservative influencer Benny Johnson posted to X. ‘And your husband who defiled the Oval Office during his presidency? President Trump’s funding a beautiful new ballroom out of his own pocket.’
‘There’s literally a Clinton scandal for every tweet she sends,’ Missouri Rep. Eric Burlison posted to X, accompanied by a screenshot of a news report on the Clintons taking an estimated $190,000 in gifted White House furniture when leaving office.
‘A Clinton would never defile the White House,’ former Trump staffer Alex Pfeiffer wrote.
‘I remember when the Clintons stole the people’s furniture and tableware,’ columnist David Harsanyi posted.
‘Almost every president of has done renovations to the White House including the Clintons who did a big spread in House Beautiful in 1993 about theirs–the East Wing façade is just that a façade, not part of the original structure and added in 1942 per Franklin D. Roosevelt,’ conservative columnist Salena Zito wrote.
‘What her husband did inside ‘our house’ is the real abomination,’ Fox Business’ Dagen McDowell posted to X.
The ballroom construction comes after Trump made other updates to the White House, including installing two 88-foot-tall American flags and an overhaul to the White House Rose Garden.
‘President Trump is working 24/7 to Make America Great Again, including his historic beautification of the White House, at no taxpayer expense,’ White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital Tuesday when asked about Clinton’s post and other Democrats criticizing the ballroom construction. ‘These long-needed upgrades will benefit generations of future presidents and American visitors to the People’s House.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Hillary Clinton’s office Wednesday morning regarding but did not immediately receive a reply.
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