The national capital already has a bigger, more beautiful ballroom than the $400 million one that President Donald Trump is seeking to build at the White House.

The existing Great Hall at the 144-year-old National Building Museum is 36,636 square feet and its ceiling rises from 75 feet by the entrance to 159 feet under the atrium. Trump’s Grand Ballroom is at most 25,000 square feet, with a 40-foot ceiling.

The magnificence of the Great Hall was on display in the Amazon documentary Melania, which features an extended scene of the candlelight dinner the first lady held there last year on the night before her husband’s second inauguration.

“We wanted to create something special,” she narrates from a sea of splendor. “It’s so powerful to see this room come to life tonight. Candlelight, black ties, and my complete creative vision filled with the elegance and sophistication of our donors.”

She already knew the hall from the Armed Forces Ball at the first Trump inauguration. She and the newly elected Trump danced that night, just the two of them in a spotlight at the center of a huge Presidential Seal.

At both of the inaugural events and several other gatherings that Trump attended at the National Building Museum, the Secret Service was able to provide security that precluded assassination attempts, such as at a 2025 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania and last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association........

© The Daily Beast