The East Wing of the White House is gone. Here’s a look at some of the history made there[html]
A large ribbon is displayed outside the East Wing of the White House during a preview of the 2016 holiday decor, Nov. 29, 2016, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)2025-10-26T13:32:36Z
WASHINGTON (AP) — Betty Ford reportedly said that if the White House West Wing is the “mind” of the nation, then the data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-white-house-ballroom-57512e0d91432f75529946fddfbfe2c5" rel="nofollow">East Wing — the traditional power center for first ladies — is the “heart.”
That “heart” beat for more than 100 years as first ladies and their teams worked from their East Wing offices on everything from stopping drug abuse and boosting literacy to beautifying and preserving the White House itself. It’s where they planned White House state dinners and brainstormed the elaborate themes that are a feature of the U.S. holiday season.
That history came to an end after wrecking crews tore down the wing’s two stories of offices and reception rooms last week. Gone is an in-house movie theater, and a covered walkway to the White House captured in so many photos over the years. An East Wing garden that was dedicated to Jacqueline Kennedy was also uprooted, photographs show.
data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump" rel="nofollow">Republican President Donald Trump ordered the demolition as part of his still-to-be approved plan to build a $300 million ballroom.
The former real estate developer has long been fixated on building a big White House ballroom. In 2010, he called a top adviser to Democratic President Barack Obama and offered to build one. Trump made no secret of his distaste for the practice of hosting elegant White House state dinners underneath tents on the South Lawn. The offer was not followed up on.
Now Trump, in his second term, is moving quickly to see his wish for what he calls a “great legacy project” become reality. He has tried to justify the East Wing tear-down and his ballroom plans by noting that some of his predecessors also added to the White House over the years.
First ladies and their staffs witnessed history in the East Wing, a “place of purpose and service,” said Anita McBride, who worked there as chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush.
“Tearing down those walls doesn’t diminish the significance of the work we accomplished there,” McBride told The Associated Press.
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Construction workers, bottom right, atop the U.S. Treasury, watch watch as demolition continues on the East Wing of the White House to make room for a new ballroom, in Washington, Oct. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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Construction workers, bottom right, atop the U.S. Treasury, watch watch as demolition continues on the East Wing of the White House to make room for a new ballroom, in Washington, Oct. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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McBride said she supports a ballroom addition because the “large and expensive tent option” that has been used when guest lists stretched longer than could be comfortably accommodated inside the White House “was not sustainable.” Tents damage the lawn and require additional infrastructure to be brought in, such as outdoor bathrooms and trolleys to move people around, especially in bad weather, she said.
Others feel differently.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, who was policy director for first lady Michelle Obama, said the demolition was a “symbolic blow” to the East Wing’s legacy as a place where women made history.
“The East Wing was this physical space that had seen the role of the first lady evolve from a social hostess into a powerful advocate on a range of issues,” she said in an interview.
Here’s a look at some of the history that came out of the East Wing and the first ladies who spent time there:
Rosalynn Carter
She was the first first lady to have her own office in the East Wing. Most first ladies before Carter had worked out of the private living quarters on the second or third floor of the residence. Carter wanted a place where she could separate work and home.
“I always need a place to go that is private, where I don’t have to dress and don’t have to put on makeup,” she wrote in her memoir. “The offices of the staff of the first lady were always in the East Wing, and it seemed a perfect place for my office too.”
In her memoir, Carter wrote about her favorite route to her office in winter months. She walked through the basement, past laundry rooms and workshops and the bomb shelter kept for the president and his staff. The thermostats in the residence above had been turned down low because of President Jimmy Carter’s energy conservation program, making the East Wing so cold that she was forced to wear long underwear.
The subterranean passageway shown to her by a residence staffer provided some relief. “With Jimmy’s energy conservation program, it was the only really warm place in the White House, with large steam pipes running overhead,” the first lady wrote.
Nancy Reagan
Photos from the East Wing in the early 1980s show the first lady meeting with staff, including her press secretary, Sheila Tate. For a generation of Americans, Nancy Reagan was most closely associated with a single phrase, data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/national-national-united-states-government-general-news-7d395462ab9e4ac8b50daaa1c0bd971f" rel="nofollow">“Just Say No,” for the anti-drug abuse program she made a hallmark of her White House tenure.
As Reagan once recalled, the idea for the campaign emerged during a 1982 visit with schoolchildren in Oakland, California. “A little girl raised her hand and said, ‘Mrs. Reagan, what do you do if somebody offers you drugs?’ And I said, ‘Well, you just say no.’ And there it was born.”
Hillary Clinton
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President Bill Clinton, flanked by Governors Ann Richards of Texas, left, and Mario Cuomo of New York, watches the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills play in the Super Bowl with his daughter Chelsea and their cat, Socks, in the White House, Jan. 31, 1993, in the family theater. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
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President Bill Clinton, flanked by Governors Ann Richards of Texas, left, and Mario Cuomo of New York, watches the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills play in the Super Bowl with his daughter Chelsea and their cat, Socks, in the White House, Jan. 31, 1993, in the family theater. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
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