00:00Commissioner Stidham? Yes. Commissioner Argo? Present. Vice Chairman Levenbach? Yes.
00:09Chairman Scharf? Yes. Commissioner Blair? Yes. Administrator Forrest? Yes. Commissioner Dixon?
00:19Chairman Mendelsohn? No. Commissioner Henderson? Yes. Commissioner Decchetti? Yes.
00:28Thank you. The motion passes. Thank you, Madam Secretary. And it is in that context in which
00:35I believe we must now review the ballroom project that is before this commission. I believe that in
00:41time, this ballroom will be considered every bit as much of a national treasure as the other key
00:46components of the White House. And I believe that in time, the nation and successive presidents of
00:52both parties in all political stripes long into the future will be grateful to President Trump
00:56for having initiated and brought this project into being.
01:02The issue to me is not whether there should be a ballroom. And I think a lot of the comments
01:08here
01:08have been about whether there should be a ballroom. I don't think that's it. It's the design.
01:15I'm trying to be nice here. It's just too large. It's just too large. And if we can get the
01:22same,
01:23the same program, but not as tall, not competing in height with the main structure,
01:31and a condensed footprint, we are better for that.
01:51We're here to protest the vote to ram through Trump's ballroom without a real review. This
01:57is a stack, a six foot stack of 35,000 public comments from Americans around this country,
02:0397% of them opposed to Trump's ballroom. And we're here today to make sure the people on this commission
02:09know that the American people think this project is a bad idea. We also are here to encourage them
02:15to actually read these comments, which I have. And some of them are powerful. There's poetry,
02:21there's creativity, there's passion for the White House and this country. And I think it's a sign
02:27that ramming through this project is a bad idea and they should rethink it.
02:31It's a bad idea.
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