Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My curiosity was itching. Right, you see Donald Trump, you
see the White House just like walls getting torn out
of the White House.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You're like, what is going on over there?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Like do I like this? Is this something that I want?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, I can tell you this. This is not the
first time the White House has undergone some sort of
major change. In fact, I have a variety of things
that have taken place. Pop quiz, when did the White
House welcome it's first president to live there?
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Reread?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You say, go, come on, come on, Peyton. Let me
just give you a chemistry exam. Now, now here's some history.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
I know when it burned down, So it's after, it's
before that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, usually something has to be built before it burns down.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Yes, thank you. Uh seventeen ninety two.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Not too far away, not too far away. Off by
twenty years, No, you're off by eight years.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The original.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
The man who moved in was John Adams George Washington,
despite his help in deciding what exactly was going to
be where. You know, if Washington, d C. Would have
been the capitol, maybe he would have stuck around for
a third term. Who knows if they would have decided
on that area which was basically nothing but kind of
a swampy area on the Potomac River. They wanted to
(01:21):
put the capital in the middle of the thirteen Colonies.
After they ratified the constitution, George Washington becomes president, they
figured out where this was going to be. It took
him a long time to kind of plot it out
and then put the house there that the president would
live in. President doesn't move into the White House until
John Adams is already the president eighteen hundred. He didn't
last there very long because in the election of eighteen
(01:41):
hundred he loses to Thomas Jefferson, his political rival. Thomas
Jefferson moves in and immediately starts making changes. So for
everybody who's saying that there's never been a major innovation
like this, how do you think they built this thing?
You think it just like appeared this way and it
was born this way in eighteen hundred. No, this is
this is a house that has been standing there in
(02:06):
some way for two hundred and twenty five years, and
many different people have lived there, like any house that
has been standing for two hundred and twenty five years,
and many people have made adjustments, some small, some large.
Many people have made adjustments to what the White House
(02:27):
looks like. So for my Democratic friends, my liberal friends
who hate Donald Trump and think that this is an
absolute abomination that he's torn out a wall of the
east wing and he is going to build this very
extravagant ninety ninety thousand square foot ballroom, hold your horses,
(02:48):
buckle up, because I got a list of things that
have actually happened after this thing was open, and the
different presidents that decided to do these things and execute that.
The first real change was when Thomas Jefferson took office
and moved in just shortly after eighteen oh one. He
used his architectural skills designing the colonnades on both the
(03:12):
east and west side on either side of the mansion.
So if you walk on both sides, there's these big
kind of outdoor areas. It's beautiful, right, It wasn't there originally.
He put pathways connecting the main residents to the service
buildings nearby. And as soon as he did that, oh,
the federalists were mad, Oh my, how dare this man
(03:35):
who just to be kind president of our affair nation
which was just born nay two decades ago, and he's
built outdoor pathways from the White House to the service buildings.
Ah ooh, the Federalists were not happy with him. He
(03:57):
still did it, though, didn't he James Madison was in
office when all of a sudden the Brits were like,
you know what, we kind of want that back, and
they came back and they fought another war that nobody
talks about the War of eighteen twelve, real war that
somehow is called the War of eighteen twelve, despite it
also taking place in eighteen thirteen, eighteen fourteen, and eighteen fifteen.
(04:19):
But alas, you have very little choice in going back
and changing the matter. Although we have a president renaming
big bodies of water in areas of land, so maybe
we can go back and change the name of this war. Regardless,
it needed to be rebuilt and it took some time,
so because you know, one of the things that they
did was the British came over and they just set
(04:40):
fire to the thing.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Could you imagine the British came over and they just like, yeah,
I'm gonna set the President's house on fire while like
people are in there. Nobody talks about this. We talk
about so many stupid things in American history. Nobody talks
about this. It's crazy. It's like one of the most
(05:03):
insane things that happened. They came back anyway. James Monroe
took office, and he ordered the creation of the south portico,
the semi circular porch with the big columns that look
out on the south lawn.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Now you're rebuilding this thing.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I don't think many people were too upset as far
as it goes. You know, you could have probably just
made this thing look like the leaning Tower of Pisa
for all anybody cared at that point because they were
just lucky it still was standing there, you know what
I mean. Andrew Jackson takes office, maybe close to a
decade later, he builds a similar portico on the other side,
(05:45):
on the north side, with the large columns, and people.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Like, what is he doing over there?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
How dadh Andrew Jackson in your north facing portiico? This
is legitimately what America in history has been like for
two hundred and twenty five plus years as it relates
to this building. Specifically, by the way, the appropriation from
Congress to build the north Portico twenty four seven twenty
(06:13):
nine dollars. They built that thing with the big columns
on the north side with the semi circular portico with
the columns is a it's a crazy look, right, it's
a great looking porch.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
You know, both sides have it.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The second one was super controversial because Congress appropriated twenty
four thousand, seven and twenty nine dollars for it, which,
by the way, if you thought about like today's dollars,
that's eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is insanely
cheap for something like this, Like this is this ballroom
that he's building. The whole product's going to be like
three hundred million dollars, three hundred million dollars. None of
(06:49):
it appropriated, by the way, it's all private donors. I'll
get to that in a second for you, for my
liberal friends who really want to be angry at Donald
Trump for building this thing. By the way, the Whigs
were the political opposition to Andrew Jackson at the time.
The Whig Party read about those guys. They eventually died
out just before the Civil War began because they were
(07:10):
you know, whoosies. But you know, that's beside the point. Anyway,
Jackson had a bunch of people that were basically, we
should have made debt reduction for the American people instead
of building this stupid porch on the north side of
the White House. People, this is an economic downturn, mind you.
This is all over twenty four, thy seven and twenty
nine dollars in eighteen twenty four money, so or eighteen
(07:31):
twenty nine money.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
My bad?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Wow, that's crazy, Right, I got more where this came from.
How about nineteen hundreds for renovations stuff that we talk
about all the time about the White House. Well, it
was already one hundred years old, and we don't even
have any of the wings done yet. And we're talking
about history of the White House, major renovations the White
House has gone through, and things that we have tried
to learn about and things we have tried to reconcile with.
(07:59):
As the Demi crats throw a horrible fit about the
construction of this ninety thousand square football room that is
being built next to the east wing or basically on
the east wing of the White House, no money has
been properly allotted by Congress for this. By the way,
this is all private donors. I have the list of
the donors. By the way, we'll get to that in
(08:19):
a second three hundred million dollars, a big project, but
none of it's coming out of the American government money.
So we got up to nineteen hundred. We've made it
one hundred years with this house. It's basically been burned
to a crisp once. We had the giant pillars of
the portocoes on both sides of the White House. We've
had the outdoor pathways that were built by Thomas Jefferson
(08:42):
pretty quickly after he moves in. And people just bought
bamboozled by this. They can't believe that people are changing
this house.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
The West Wing, it's TV show. It's a great TV show.
Did you watch it?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
No?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
I have? The West Wing is what it's called.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
The West Wing. Yeah, it's a great political television show.
Went on for a long time, but yeah, the West Wing.
Theodore Roosevelt, old Teddy takes office. But the western side
of the White House had a greenhouse on it. I
don't know why, but that's where it was. So Teddy
(09:18):
Roosevelt said, you know what we should do. How about
we put a bigger space for me and the people
around me, my officials, my friends, my cabinet things, of
that nature, that we could do anything with this space
instead of just whatever plants are existing in this greenhouse.
(09:39):
They build the West Wing at sixty five thousand dollars.
Sixty five thousand dollars, that's only two million in today's money.
They were getting great deals on all the lumber and
whatever they were using to build this stuff, which we'll
get to in a second because they had to change
all that after a while. But yeah, nineteen oh two,
(10:00):
the West Wing becomes a thing. The East Wing becomes
a thing. In nineteen forty two, as FDR. The other Roosevelt,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened the other administrative building, the East Wing,
which is kind of, you know, kind of in the
cross because that's where this ballroom is being put and
(10:21):
the first Lady and her staff are doing stuff in
the East Wing. This is all taking place, mind you,
while we're in the midst of World War Two, and
the people who don't like FDR at the time, which
would have been his Republican counterparts, were like, ah, you
can't do that, we need all of this. We should
(10:41):
be tearing down the White House to use his materials
for the war effort, because that's what they were doing right.
They were using everything for the war effort back then,
and they thought Roosevelt was doing this to somehow bolster
his own personal image. The East Wing nineteen forty two,
they were still throwing a fit about it. It was the
other side, though, You know, not to say that them
Ats and Republicans are the exact same as they were
(11:02):
back then, because they certainly are not now. Harry Truman
takes over for FDR when he dies, and once he
assumed office, basically engineers at the White House and we
have finally got ourselves through the war. Eventually they figure
the wooden beams, there's plumbing that's been here for over
one hundred years. The electrical systems are just not good
(11:24):
with the way that we have lined this thing up,
because electricity was still not in its infancy, still in
the forties, but it still is still in some ways
just up in the air as to how efficient electricity
could potentially be for a property, and he wanted to
make sure it was wired correctly. Harry Truman leaves the
White House and doesn't live there for four years of
(11:45):
his term. You know, he's the president for a bit, but.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
He's for four years. He doesn't even live there.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
He doesn't even get the experience of living there because
there was a top to bottom renovation that cost him
at the time five point seven million dollars. Again, that's
only sixty million today if you wanted to completely. They
basically just emptied the whole thing out. The outer shell
was like all that was untouched. Everything inside from the bottom,
like the basement, the foundation, all the way to the
(12:12):
very top that that was completely changed. And they dismantled
the whole interior, putting new wiring, flooring, interior walls, steel
and concrete all throughout the interior. And then they added
two basements and they expanded a new third floor, so
the third floor wasn't there the whole time. They expanded
the third floor. And then you know, Truman was also
(12:36):
a Democrat, so the Republicans were like.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You just built the east wing. What are you doing?
How could you do this?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
We're spending too much money, We're trying to recover from
a huge war. Oh, there you go. Also, there was
a balcony that was added to the second floor on
the south side of the White House, and of course
Truman's opponents.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Were like, no, boot, why do you need a balcony.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Did you know the Rose Garden didn't come into being
until nineteen sixty two, the historic Rose Garden Jacqueline Onassis
Kennedy nineteen sixty two wanted to change up on the
west side of the White House that Colonnaud that Thomas
Jefferson had initially built when he got into office. Well,
(13:30):
they made this new space, the Rose Garden, and oneed
that for formal and official events nineteen sixty two. Think
about all of this stuff. The Oval Office was created
Oval by Taft.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It's a lot of different pieces in here. And I
gotta tell you the third floor being added nineteen twenty seven,
I didn't even mention that, So I mean nineteen fifty
two a one lay. Every president's in nineteen fifty two
has added something to the White House. Nixon added a
bowling alley in nineteen seventy three, one lane of bowling alley.
(14:10):
Imagine hearing that now Trump putting like a golf simulator
in the basement of the White House. Oh, they'd lose
their minds. Obama changed the tennis court that existed into
a basketball court in two thousand and nine. He's a
basketball guy. Shot hoops. Oh, the outrage. What about this
(14:31):
ninety thousand square footballroom. How is it getting paid for?
Who's on the hook for it? I have an answer,
and then we're gonna talk and we're gonna have some
fun with this. What do you want to see happen
in there? Once it's done? Phone lines, We'll take some
phone calls here in a second. I got some crazy
ideas what to do with this ninety thousand square foot
ballroom once it gets done. And Matthew reminded me that
(14:52):
the War of eighteen twelve is named that because that's
the year the war started. Really, yeah, it started in
eighteen twelve, he says, it started in eighteen twelve. Dang,
now that explains everything. It also took place in eighteen thirteen,
eighteen fourteen, eighteen fifteen, but who's counting.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It needs a better name.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
We don't just name wars that, you know, we like
the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War one, World
War two? What was this war? The Return of the Brits?
I don't know, Like whatever you whatever you want to
call it is. We got to do better than the
War of eighteen twelve. It's that's dumb. And yes, I
know it was it started in eighteen twelve. Come on,
what are we doing here? I can tell I can
(15:37):
tell you all forty seven presidents in order. And you
don't think I know the War of eighteen twelve started
in eighteen twelve. Come on, anyway, got a donor list here.
Ninety thousand square feet that's what this ballroom is going
to be. And they say the project is going to
cost around three hundred million dollars. That's really expensive, especially
(15:59):
I just went through a ton of major changes that
took place in a ton of deal like these are.
Everybody's made small changes for the most part because it's
their house for a short time and they want to
leave a little bit their legacy onto the space as
far as it goes, right, But none of them are
going to cost this much. The main difference is Congress
(16:21):
has had to approve the money for that type of
improvement at the White House, and this time that has
not happened. This is all through private donations. Now a
lot of people are you know, And I did this
on my morning show and people were like, did he
go through all the necessary channels? Because its historic property
and it is like technically kind of like what he
(16:43):
worked with the National Park and Park Service and all
that stuff to make sure that they're not doing anything
too crazy here. And I'm just like, man, I just
went through a ton of different renovations that have taken
place on this house for the better part of the
last two hundred and twenty five years. I'm sure every
type of like can we do this, is this gonna work?
Is this gonna make it look good? Like are we
(17:03):
gonna be all right? I'm sure that was exhausted by
Trump and the people around him and the people who
are doing this doing the work.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So I have the list.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Of White House ballroom donors, and the first one is
Donald Trump. He says he's put I don't know how
much money specifically, but he's put money himself into this
as a guy who's not even getting the paycheck to
be the president of the United States. Not that the
paycheck's all that much compared to what he's made in
his life, but you know, there you go.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Here are the others in.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Alphabetical order, and then I'm going to get to a
certain point where I'm gonna go to like private families
and donors that are not companies. But here's the companies
who are donating to the White House Ballroom. I'll tri
a group. I don't know what is that. I'll trey
a group. Oh it's a let me see it is
(17:57):
a American Corps operation, one of the largest producers and
marketers of tobacco products, also medical products. That seems like
a weird thing, but yeah, Altria. There you go. The
tobacco companies. They're back anyway, Amazon, Apple, Booze, Alan Hamilton, Caterpillar,
(18:23):
you know, like the construction machinery Coinbase, Comcast Corporation, Jay
Pepe and Amelia Fan Jewel. I don't know who those
people are, hard Rock International. I think they could throw
a few parties at the White House Ballroom. Google, HP,
(18:46):
Lockheed Martin. Don't let them. Don't let them be careful
with what you do with Lockheed Martin in the ballroom.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Meta platforms so like Facebook, Instagram, that's Zuckerberg's company, Micron Technology, Microsoft,
next Era Energy, Polantier Technologies, Ripple Reynolds, American Team Mobile,
(19:18):
Teather America in the Union, Pacific Railroad.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
With all those large net worths, three hundred million doesn't
seem like so much after all.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Well, I'm not even done yet. But yeah, you would think,
I mean in what in tarnation and Ripple is like
what is Ripple? A ripple American funk band from Michigan
in the nineteen seventies. I don't know where they got
all their money. No, the Ripple group is apparently technology
is a technology company with operational digital experience and expertise.
(19:55):
And yeah, their group provides professional consulting services within the
property industry. There you go, the more you know. Here
are the smaller groups that have made donations. The Adelson
Family Foundation, Stefan E. Brody, Betty Wold Johnson Foundation, Charles
(20:17):
and Marissa Kiss, Korea, Edward and Shari Glazer, Harold Ham,
Benjamin Leon Jr. The Lutnik Family, the Laura and Isaac
Peerlmuter Foundation, stephen A. Schwartzman, Konstantine Sokoloff, Kelly Leffler and
(20:38):
Jeff Spretcher, Paolo TIREMANI and Cameron and Tyler Winklevass. You
know who's not paying for it?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
You and me.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
And anyone that's not on LA three hundred million dollars. Yeah,
you don't think that Between Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft,
they couldn't have just teamed up to pay for it
all themselves. They probably could have. They didn't need just
their money though, because there are a bunch of other
people trying to get in on this.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, ladies and.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Gentlemen, those are the people that are involved in building
the ballroom. Now comes to question, what are we going
to do with a ninety thousand square footballroom? I have
some ideas. Do you even know how big that is?
I can tell you good situation here of space that
we're about to run into with a ninety thousand square footballroom. Now,
(21:40):
have you been to a party? Think about all the
great party's weddings, things of that nature that you've been at.
That is it a ballroom? Is it a convention center?
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You know, you had like some sort of you know,
ted talk or whatever. What Like if you're in a
medical field, maybe you go there and you hear some
people talk. Would be like to rent out space at
the White House to do that? Is that something you
can even do? Ninety thousand square feet is a lot
of space. I tried to figure out exactly what that
(22:12):
would be in ways, I like I could understand what
ninety thousand square.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Feet look like.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Well, according to the square footage of an American football field,
including of course the end zones, that is fifty seven
six hundred square feet. So think about that. You could
fit one and a half football fields. It would be tight,
(22:41):
and it would depend on like the shape of your
ninety thousand square feet right, like how much of a
rectangle is it more? You know, squareish? Like what does
it look like? But theoretically you could fit one and
a half American football fields into the area of this
ballroom once it's done. I think about a cosco if
you're at a Costco warehouse, a medium sized Costco would
(23:03):
be somewhere in the vicinity of ninety thousand square feet.
You ever walked inside one of those and looked around
and been like, wow, there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Of space in here. This's big.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
That's how big this uh, this ballroom is going to
look like. Think about your big city convention centers and
exhibit halls. Think about c CHI Health Center. I'm not
exactly sure what their convention center is when all of
the rooms are like put together, but it's got to
be kind of close to what we're talking about. Ninety
(23:31):
thousand square feet one and a half football fields. I
mean that's a lot. So before I get into some
ideas of how many people can actually fit in here
for different events, and then what we might be able
to do with it. Our phone lines are open and
I'll take these calls before we hit the top of
the hour. Dan is on our line at four h two, five, five,
eight eleven ten. Dan, what's on your mind today?
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I don't know if you see if you caught this
part or not earlier. I've been in and out of this.
But the reason of the Truman rebuild on that was
because Margaret Truman's piano all through the floor above the
dining room, which is why they had to do a
total gut and rebuilding, why they couldn't live there anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Wow, imagine being on the in the dining room, just
like an actual piano falls on you. It's not like
a Tom and Jerry cartoon, like an actual pianofl on you.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
That would have been a bad way to go man.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
As a time my understanding, they were actually eating dinner
at the dining room and stuff came crashing down to
the table while they're eating, and the leg of the
piano was sticking through the ceiline or floor or combo thereop.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Wow, well, Dan, that's interesting to look into that. That'd
be a that's a funny white house anecdote. I don't
know how you could be outraged for thinking, you know,
maybe we should probably update the infrastructure of this one
hundred and fifty year old.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
House, you know.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
But yeah, that's how bad the structure was during that time.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, well, Dan, I appreciate you the note. Thanks for
calling in today.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Good Joe, thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Amy's on our phone line for two five five, eight
eleven ten. Welcome in, Amy, you're on eleven tin kfy B. Nope,
she going never mind. We'll call back Gamy if you want.
All right, if you're having a cocktail reception standing room
only kind of cocktail reception, roughly, uh, you know, that's
(25:14):
like a six square feet per person kind of thing.
Think about like what that would look like. Six square
feet that's enough space for you to kind of like
be up and walk around and have elbow room and
all that stuff. Basically fifteen thousand people could like be
in there and be stuffed together. Now, that doesn't include
like a stage or any auxiliary things that you might
(25:34):
have up If you want a theater or auditorium seating.
In this type of situation, you could fit between nine
and eleven thousand seats if you really tightened it up
so like you just kind of line people up at
the stage up the front. I don't know if you're
ever going to need something that big for this space,
but you know something in mind, I'm thinking more banquet
like the round tables, where you know, like a wedding
reception where there's like twelve seats at a table, and
(25:56):
you know you have a bunch of round tables. We're
looking at in the range of six thousand and seven
thousand guests could comfortably fit. Again, this doesn't count any
potential auxiliary areas of the ballroom that you want to
keep for something else. But if you're just cramming this
many people in there, six thousand people, if you're having
a meeting with some tables and chairs across it, like
classroom style, forty five hundred to five thousand is what
(26:19):
you're looking at. If you're doing like a big convention,
like an exhibit, like an exhibition hall or whatever, like
a home expo or whatever, you could fit like nine
hundred booths here. That's how big this space is. Again,
that's with you know, all that stuff. And if you
wanted to part cars in there and you just turn
it into a parking lot, think about three hundred cars
(26:41):
being able.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
To fit in there.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Kind of idea, because you need like three hundred square
feet per car because you're counting the aisles as well.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
You have to keep for cars to get in and out. Yeah,
there you go.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
So those are some size estimates for this ninety in
square foot space. Now I have a couple of crazy ideas.
Number One, the first thing that we do is we
get the White House Classic. They play that Battle for
Atlantis basketball tournament during like Thanksgiving time in the Bahamas,
(27:17):
and they play it in an area like it's in
the Bahamas. It's at a resort, and they basically turn
the ballroom at that resort into a basketball court and
it only seats like eight hundred to one thousand people,
Like not a lot of seating for people, but they
have a full on basketball court that can be there
in like you can play basketball like legitimate college basketball games.
(27:40):
I want the White House Classic. I want eight teams
from around America to get invited to play in the
White House Classic. They can stay in the East wing
of the White House and they have all these like
American themes and everything, and then those eight teams play
a tournament at the beginning of a season, like we're
about to embark on the early season, you know tournaments.
(28:01):
I want one of those in the White House, and
we turned the White House Ballroom into a basketball arena
for a week.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
That would be epic.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Remember when they used to do it on the Battleship
out side, Like that was so so epic.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It was, But outside you have variables you can't control,
and you're on the ocean. Yeah, and it's like the
condensation on the floor made it slippery and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
It creates a problem. You know what you could do?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
How about you go inside this ballroom, which is gonna
have plenty of space to have an actual basketball game.
Put some temporary stands in there so people can watch
the president and people in the White House can bop
in and out and like watch the games.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It'll be awesome.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Another thing that we could do, how about we Chris
in the new White House ballroom with a giant bochi
ball tournament.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I've done the math.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You can do like thirty six to forty Bachie courts
comfortably and make it international. So like Putin comes over
with one of his Krimlin buddies. Maybe we get like
Mark Carney from Canada and a polar bear together or something.
Trump and Milania can like be together and you just
play bochi ball until we have like a winner. What
a great way to celebrate the new ballroom, but also
(29:08):
to try to mend relationships with people from all over
the world. Come play in our bochi ball tournament. Come on,
it's amazing tonight. I think I'm gonna go play some tennis.
It's a little cool, but you know, like to play
some tennis while the weather's still cooperating. So yeah, just
trying to get myself going. How about this ninety thousand
(29:29):
square foot ballroom at the White House. The US Open
tennis tournament takes place in New York. They always have
these like warm up tennis tournaments, like in August before
the US Open, one of the biggest tournaments in Cincinnati
for instance, right like they do like like six weeks
(29:50):
leading up to that, after like the Wimbledon takes place,
that's when everybody stops playing in kind of the England
in the European area, and they to the United States
and there's like a bunch of tour stops that you
can play in those tournaments around the United States. Let's
put one with one court, an invitational between like sixteen
(30:12):
men and sixteen women, and over the course of a
week do like an all star tennis tournament in this
incredibly beautiful ninety thousand square football room.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
There should be plenty of room for that.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
It's hard to imagine that working inside of a space,
but there's so much room.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
You could do whatever you want in there.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, you try to think football field in a half,
I'm trying to think, like, man, okay, I'm walking into
this tennis match or multiple tennis matches. You're inside of
a building, but it's not a stadium.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
It's a ballroom. It's a ballroom.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Like it's hard not even just a ballroom, it's a
ballroom in like like it's connected to the White House.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Yeah, just him having a hard time like visualizing it.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
That's what makes you so fun and so cool. It's
it's like there hasn't been a venue like this in
the United States where it's on the grounds of the
hallowed White House grounds, but you can do anything in there,
Like I know they want to throw these big lavish
parties take outside the box here. Yeah, a few people
(31:17):
were like, hey, what about like the MMA fights that
Trump is suggesting, Like, I know they're supposed to be
like outside and stuff, but yeah, you know, you could
have a more controlled, less variable situation if you just
move the cage into the ballroom and put seats around it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, that would be cool.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
No matter what sporting event we put here. It's really
for television, right, because how many people are like how
many realistically, how many people are going to be able
to sit in temporary seating for any of these things,
whether it's the basketball idea or the tennis idea or
whatever or MMA and fit in there while still having
(31:58):
plenty of room to walk round, right?
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Would this be like on on ESPN but then also
c SPAN at the same time, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
The Bachi ball tournament with all the dignitaries that is
being like live twenty four to seven while the games
are going on on c SPAN. It's like, okay, so
Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is playing
with Manny Pacquiao, the longtime Filipino ambassador former boxer, and
(32:30):
they are partners for some reason in our international bachi
ball tournament of all these dignitaries, and they are taking
on the team of the crazy Venezuelan guy and the
brand new woman who's in charge of Japan, the Japanese
Prime minister, and they're playing boschi ball together.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
What's the line?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Not dude, the Japanese Prime Minister will probably punched that guy.
I mean, honestly, oh, that'd be yeah, but you know,
it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
That's my idea this but they don't let me to
choose these things. And this is what I'm trying to
figure out, right, It's just like, how could we make
this work? Let me figure this out. How many people
realistically could be spectators for a college basketball game in
(33:24):
this space, because I you know, it would have to
be like a lottery system. And if we do like
the college basketball idea, you would want the schools to
have the ability to give their parents, family members, anyone
relating to the team, anybody at the school. You'd probably
allot them like five hundred tickets or so.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
You'd think, yeah, they'd probably have a system.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So and then just how do you like you would
have to kind of move in like these temporary stamp
It wouldn't maybe look the best, but you know, you'd
have to put those in there.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
It look great, It look fine on television, though I'm
sure how it looked inside would be maybe questionable.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
They say, like, if you really wanted to make this work,
and I doubt this, you could get comfortably eight thousand
people into the space. I'm thinking like you probably set
it up for like one thousand, like two thousand maybe,
and it's gonna be like a lottery system for people
to get tickets to something like this. The same thing
(34:31):
with the UFC thing. The random person is not going
to have a chance to really do this. No, the
random person is not going to be giving access to
go see the UFC fights on the White House lawn.
But you could do like a lottery system and then
sell the tickets for like five thousand dollars each. I mean,
(34:52):
this is a capitalistic society. There's people out there that
would pay for that. People paid that much to go
see Taylor Swift. People are paying that much to go
to Wrestle Maine. Yeah, why wouldn't people do that to
be a part of this crazy unique event on the
White House lawn. That's a simple question, and it would
be intimate, right because you know that there's gonna be
a finite amount of space that people are gonna be
able to enjoy this, and how are you even getting
(35:15):
people in and out of there? This would be the
other thing, right, So you know it's hard to get
into the White House. They used to do tours of
the White House, and they still probably do, but you know,
it's a lot more difficult. I think the thing that probably,
like I would the first thing that I would do
would be, you know what kind of access from the
(35:37):
outside into the ballroom without having to go through the
White House, because you're not going to let these people
have access to the East Wing who are not like credentialed,
you know, much security risk. That would be just have
a bunch of randos like walk in the halls of
the East Wing. You can't do that. So obviously they
wouldn't do that. But then we have to set up
(35:58):
like concession stands and stuff for people drinking beer in
this ballroom. Of course they are, right, got to get
an official beer sponsor for the White House. Maybe somebody
brews some White House beer. And then like Georgetown or
George Washington University, like the schools that are in Washington, DC,
they can benefit from like nil for people buying the beer. Look, man,
(36:19):
sign me up, Like put me in charge of this.
This is a money making venture. Donald Trump, and all
these people like Apple and Amazon and Microsoft and Meta
and Google and HP and all these people are donating
money into this giant ballroom. Let's get crazy, all right.
I will be the brand new White House ballroom events planner,
(36:39):
and I will book out a calendar's worth of crazy ideas.
And this is a president that I think would be like,
you know what, that's.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Not such a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And I think we could do this stuff like while
he's still in office. I know jd Vance, who may
very well be the next president of the United States
if we can keep it republic. He's a sports guy
who loves Ohio State, right, you know what, like, hey,
let's get the buck eyes and for my college basketball
tournament idea. You know what I mean, I don't need
(37:18):
a job, but I do this for free, Like Donald Trump,
this would be my passion projects to help them book
this thing out with fun, exciting ideas that also could
make everybody a bunch of money.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
It can happen.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
There's a lot of rich people in this country are
looking for stuff like this to do. And we have
Mike on the phone line today. Welcome in, Mike. What
do you think about this for Amy?
Speaker 6 (37:39):
I think you'd be fantastic candidate for that. I think
in charge of the ballroom. But obviously everybody in the
White House and government's kind of a tie where he
got secretary of war, you got the borders, are got
the drugs are so you could be the balls are
in charge of everything related to balls. Hmm, great, hmm.
I mean what to be a title? That'd be a
(38:02):
legendary title.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, let me think on that, Mike.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I'll get back to you. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
Yeah, we'll hold the line for.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
You, all right, all right, just hold it warm and
uh we'll see. I'll fondle my.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Brain for a second and think you figure that all right?
All right, sounds good. I just appreciate it. Huh, yeah,
you know it is. It is a ballroom, so in
theory it is a room for balls, but I was
thinking more like basketballs and botchy balls and things like
that can also go into it. So maybe maybe he's
(38:39):
onto something there. I might adjust the name a little
bit like the spheres are. How's that because all these
things are also spheres?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
That could be true, but then you're kind of dipping
into the the sphere.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, but it's interesting with even the sphere. And they
can't that's a that's an actual term. You can't just
like hog that could we put a basketball tournament in
the sphere. That wouldn't even make sense. The whole point
of the sphere is like the effects on the big
screen behind you. Look, I don't know, you know it's
(39:13):
it would be an honor to be in charge of
booking and being the event planner for the White House Ballroom.
I'm just telling you, not a whole lot of regular
parties or balls, if you will what take place under
my watch. I'm gonna be booking this thing out for
all sorts of crazy things we're gonna do. We're gonna
do a lot of wild stuff, and you know what,
(39:35):
I'm gonna be down with it. If you have some
ideas of what to put in here. I got a
bunch of emails here I'm gonna read. I want you
to call me four h two five five, eight eleven ten.
What do we do with a ninety thousand square foot
space at the White House that we I mean see
seemingly there are endless possibilities. No idea is a bad
idea except calling me the balls are I had a person,
(39:58):
I have a lot of people in here that Michael
said the White House is six stories high. Assuming the
add on is going to be similar for esthetic looks,
it could be up to six floors and each floor
would only be fifteen thousand square feet each, because that's
what you do with the house, right, you know, it's
just like you say, ninety thousand square foot, but it
could be over several floors, right.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
That's interesting to consider. I don't know if it would
be don't like that. I don't think it would be.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I think this would be even if it has like
a high ceiling or something, it would be like a
singular floor.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You would think. That's what I think of with the
ball room.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, I agree, But for argument's sake, let's say it's
six floors of fifteen thousand square foot each. If it
does have every floor, could we still now if we
have normal ceiling heights, then that's not gonna work, right.
You would have to realistically have higher ceilings to our
basketball idea or our tennis idea, yeah, or any of
(40:51):
our audience. Yeah, you would need a higher ceiling. So
but again, for argument's sake, could I do my idea
with a high ceiling fifteen one thousand square foot ballroom.
The answer is yes, I can. Because a college basketball
(41:11):
court uses roughly nine and eighty square feet. Well, that's
just over half of the space that I have allotted.
I could still fit in seven to eight hundred expectation
or spectators via expectation, And if we had engineered layered bleachers,
we could get twelve hundred people in there. Still, my
(41:33):
ballroom could still be good enough at fifteen thousand square
feet for my white House Classic College Basketball tournament. Also,
if you wanted to have a banquet, you could still
fit one thousand people in there. If you had like
a theater auditorium seating with like a stage and a
speaker and everybody's just kind of sitting there, you could
fit up to fifteen hundred to seventeen hundred people cocktail hour.
(41:54):
It'd be very dense, but twenty five hundred people could
pack in there. You could have one hundred and fifty
boosts for some sort of exhibition or expo or whatever,
and it would be a parking lot that could fit.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Fifty cars with aisle. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
My Bocci tournament takes a little bit of a hit though,
you know, instead of fitting forty Boci courts at a time,
And I mean think about that. If I had forty
Boci courts with the whole ninety thousand square foot, if
we trimmed it to just fifteen thousand square feet, then
I could really only put eight in there.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
But then what if it's like promotion relegation, So like
the people at the top, those are your winners, your champions,
your you know, top of the league.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
So what you're saying is we still play Bacci across
all ninety thousand square foot. Yeah, but just like every
floor is a different, different level that you have to get,
so you're trying to get to the top. How many
days is this? Like, could we just make this like
a week long tournament and you just played bacci like
twenty games of Baci every day, like that's all you
do if you get sick of Baci. I think I'd
play Bacci all day one day. By the second day,
(43:01):
I'd be like, ugh, can I do something else. That's
the thing, Like I want this Bocci thing to work,
but it has to be Like every dignitary has to
have some representation, So like all of the world's leaders
have to find a way, Like like Secretary General of
NATO Mark Ruda has to come be a part of
(43:21):
our BACI tournament. But we're all waiting with baited breath.
Who his partner's going to be, like all of these
world leaders, like pick a celebrity partner or something. Could
you imagine Bad Bunny getting paired up with Mark Ruda,
the Secretary General NATO at the White House for the
BOCI ball tournament. Now Bad Bundy's become a political figure
here lately, so you know, maybe that's a bad idea,
(43:43):
but I'd watch. Maybe Bad Bundy's awesome at BACI ball.
Who's to say he was a pretty solid caddy and
happy Gilmore too, for whatever it's worth. Had another email
come in here about some of these Connie and Carneye said,
(44:04):
has anyone suggested the Miss America pageant or the Miss
USA pageant? We know President Trump loves being surrounded by
beautiful women.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
That is true.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
That actually I think is a legitimate, Like you legitimately
could make a case that that that's something he would
go for.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
That's a really good idea, extremely realistic too. You could
put a stage in theresible. Yeah, yeah, and you know
how many people are watching that on TV versus in person.
Of course, you'd want the families who all Miss America
finalists there to get a little atmosphere and clap in
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
But we've already established so you can fit enough people
to make that atmosphere work and the music and all
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Right, you know.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
You're onto something there, Connie. That's good. I'll put that
on my list of things I'm going to schedule out
when I become the official czar of the White House Ballroom.
Pat's on a phone line at four oh two five
five eight eleven ten. Welcome Pat. What's on your mind today?
Speaker 7 (44:57):
Hey, Emery, I just kind of caught the ta Lendo
your conversation here about the ballroom, and I think you
just need to be aware too that this isn't all
just ballroom space. There's got to be like blobby space,
and there's gonna be probably food prep space, bathrooms and
all the other stuff that goes with this thing. So
(45:19):
it's not ninety thousand square feet of ballroom. It's you know,
there's a lot of other stuff that has to go
along with that to support What.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Do you think.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
What do you think like seventy thousand of the square
feet I can use.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
For a tournament?
Speaker 7 (45:34):
Probably not that much. I mean again, I think they
said it was built for like six hundred people. So
if you just start doing the math, say fifteen square
feet per person, what is that? I'm not sure what
that number is.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, that seems like way less than ninety thousand square
feet like less.
Speaker 7 (45:53):
Yeah. Yeah, again, I don't know how they got to
that number, but there's obviously more two just ballroom space,
and it's going to be you know, that big of
a space is going to have to have some height
to it. So it's not going to be six stories, right,
It's probably going to be maybe two or three of
the most, Yeah, because you've got to have some height
(46:15):
when you got that big of a four space. So anyway,
some quick thoughts.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Yeah, well, Pat, I'm going to make sure that all
this is accounting for when I become the guy who's
the event planner for the White House Ballroom, I'll make
sure that we get the space that we need for
these events. So I'm glad that you ask my attention.
It's very important. Yeah, thank you for your service as
an American patout. Yeah, you know, you know, I can't
do this all alone. I have to surround myself with
(46:41):
good people. Maybe Pat becomes one of my advisors as
I take the incredibly prestigious role of being the event
planner for the White House ballroom?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Can I get elected to that position?
Speaker 7 (46:52):
Like?
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Is that something that the American people can suggest me
for or is that like, is that a cabinet level
position that I have to get confirmed by the Senate?
Speaker 2 (47:01):
I can?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
I could suck up to the senators real good.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
I would imagine that this would probably be in a
presidential appointment, right, president would be like, this is who
I want to schedule the events? Or his cabinet could
have let you know, choose.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
That's the thing is, if I'm a cabinet level worker,
then I'd have to be approved by the Senate, and
you know, I can technically be considered a pretty controversial
figure based on the fact that you know, I've been
in radio my whole life. I don't have a lot
of experience in planning events, but This is just too
good of an opportunity to pass up. And maybe my
(47:34):
charisma would allow us the opportunity to book better acts,
attract more important people, better teams or athletes to be
a part of our insane events at this brand new ballroom.
I don't know. I think we're onto something here. Welcome
into the show, Ray, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (47:52):
Hey, Emory?
Speaker 6 (47:53):
Great show as always?
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Thanks.
Speaker 6 (47:55):
I love calling and talking.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
If you want to job as.
Speaker 7 (48:01):
Events manager putting on events in this new.
Speaker 6 (48:05):
Ballroom, suggest to him that they do a haunted house.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
Yeah, I don't know if any want suggested that I
have it, and.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
You know what, a white house, haunted house. The possibilities
would be endless.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
And then to make sure that you scare the pants
off of everybody who goes through it at the end,
have a twelve foot or a twenty foot picture a Hillary. Ah,
there is just do it.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
There's a lunchline boom. All right, Ray, I'll keep that
under advisement. Yeah, thanks, buddy, appreciate the call. That's good.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Steve's on our phone line four two five eleven ten.
What you got for me today, Steve?
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Hey, Emory, I used to live there and I go
there pretty regularly on business. The thing that came across
my mind when you thought when you said six hundred
people in this venue, were everybody's gonna park I mean,
it's insane around the White House with security and there's
no parking anywhere. I'm trying to imagine six hundred people
trying to go to that venue for an event. It's
(49:10):
gonna be a logistics nightmare.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Well, well, Steve, wait until I get three thousand people
to go there for a college basketball game that I'm
gonna somehow fit into the confines of this space, and
then it'll really be a mess. I mean, we're gonna
have to have like some you know what we're gonna do.
We're gonna pay shuttle drivers. We're gonna stimulate the Washington
DC economy. We're gonna pay shuttle drivers to We're gonna
park at Nationals Park, like you know, five or six
(49:35):
miles away, and we're gonna have people jump on shuttles
and everybody's gonna get shuttled so they can have fun,
go into the ballroom and not have to worry about
the parking situation, and then within thirty minutes of the
event actually ending, the shuttles will come back and start
picking people up and taking them back to the parking lot. Hey,
there we go, right, Steve, I got this figured out.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't go in the National Ballpark
neighborhood with a loaded weapon. And so I'm not sure
I want to be parking cars there, let alone shuttling
them back and forth. I'm sure if you haven't driven
through that traffic, it's just nightmare. Yeah, I'm a National
Park up to the White House.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
I appreciate the call, Steve. Thanks, IM running out of
time this hour. But I will say this, I actually
have ridden a bike through there, and I have gone
to National's Park twice, and I have walked through there
at nighttime both times i've gone. It's not the best
spot to be, you know, hanging out in But again,
maybe I'm just a little bit of the cavalier. I
enjoy I enjoyed my time walking around and taking the
(50:35):
public bikes and stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
But it is what it is.
My curiosity was itching. Right, you see Donald Trump, you
see the White House just like walls getting torn out
of the White House.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You're like, what is going on over there?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Like do I like this? Is this something that I want?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, I can tell you this. This is not the
first time the White House has undergone some sort of
major change. In fact, I have a variety of things
that have taken place. Pop quiz, when did the White
House welcome it's first president to live there?
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Reread?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You say, go, come on, come on, Peyton. Let me
just give you a chemistry exam. Now, now here's some history.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
I know when it burned down, So it's after, it's
before that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, usually something has to be built before it burns down.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Yes, thank you. Uh seventeen ninety two.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Not too far away, not too far away. Off by
twenty years, No, you're off by eight years.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The original.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
The man who moved in was John Adams George Washington,
despite his help in deciding what exactly was going to
be where. You know, if Washington, d C. Would have
been the capitol, maybe he would have stuck around for
a third term. Who knows if they would have decided
on that area which was basically nothing but kind of
a swampy area on the Potomac River. They wanted to
(01:21):
put the capital in the middle of the thirteen Colonies.
After they ratified the constitution, George Washington becomes president, they
figured out where this was going to be. It took
him a long time to kind of plot it out
and then put the house there that the president would
live in. President doesn't move into the White House until
John Adams is already the president eighteen hundred. He didn't
last there very long because in the election of eighteen
(01:41):
hundred he loses to Thomas Jefferson, his political rival. Thomas
Jefferson moves in and immediately starts making changes. So for
everybody who's saying that there's never been a major innovation
like this, how do you think they built this thing?
You think it just like appeared this way and it
was born this way in eighteen hundred. No, this is
this is a house that has been standing there in
(02:06):
some way for two hundred and twenty five years, and
many different people have lived there, like any house that
has been standing for two hundred and twenty five years,
and many people have made adjustments, some small, some large.
Many people have made adjustments to what the White House
(02:27):
looks like. So for my Democratic friends, my liberal friends
who hate Donald Trump and think that this is an
absolute abomination that he's torn out a wall of the
east wing and he is going to build this very
extravagant ninety ninety thousand square foot ballroom, hold your horses,
(02:48):
buckle up, because I got a list of things that
have actually happened after this thing was open, and the
different presidents that decided to do these things and execute that.
The first real change was when Thomas Jefferson took office
and moved in just shortly after eighteen oh one. He
used his architectural skills designing the colonnades on both the
(03:12):
east and west side on either side of the mansion.
So if you walk on both sides, there's these big
kind of outdoor areas. It's beautiful, right, It wasn't there originally.
He put pathways connecting the main residents to the service
buildings nearby. And as soon as he did that, oh,
the federalists were mad, Oh my, how dare this man
(03:35):
who just to be kind president of our affair nation
which was just born nay two decades ago, and he's
built outdoor pathways from the White House to the service buildings.
Ah ooh, the Federalists were not happy with him. He
(03:57):
still did it, though, didn't he James Madison was in
office when all of a sudden the Brits were like,
you know what, we kind of want that back, and
they came back and they fought another war that nobody
talks about the War of eighteen twelve, real war that
somehow is called the War of eighteen twelve, despite it
also taking place in eighteen thirteen, eighteen fourteen, and eighteen fifteen.
(04:19):
But alas, you have very little choice in going back
and changing the matter. Although we have a president renaming
big bodies of water in areas of land, so maybe
we can go back and change the name of this war. Regardless,
it needed to be rebuilt and it took some time,
so because you know, one of the things that they
did was the British came over and they just set
(04:40):
fire to the thing.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Could you imagine the British came over and they just like, yeah,
I'm gonna set the President's house on fire while like
people are in there. Nobody talks about this. We talk
about so many stupid things in American history. Nobody talks
about this. It's crazy. It's like one of the most
(05:03):
insane things that happened. They came back anyway. James Monroe
took office, and he ordered the creation of the south portico,
the semi circular porch with the big columns that look
out on the south lawn.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Now you're rebuilding this thing.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I don't think many people were too upset as far
as it goes. You know, you could have probably just
made this thing look like the leaning Tower of Pisa
for all anybody cared at that point because they were
just lucky it still was standing there, you know what
I mean. Andrew Jackson takes office, maybe close to a
decade later, he builds a similar portico on the other side,
(05:45):
on the north side, with the large columns, and people.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Like, what is he doing over there?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
How dadh Andrew Jackson in your north facing portiico? This
is legitimately what America in history has been like for
two hundred and twenty five plus years as it relates
to this building. Specifically, by the way, the appropriation from
Congress to build the north Portico twenty four seven twenty
(06:13):
nine dollars. They built that thing with the big columns
on the north side with the semi circular portico with
the columns is a it's a crazy look, right, it's
a great looking porch.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
You know, both sides have it.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The second one was super controversial because Congress appropriated twenty
four thousand, seven and twenty nine dollars for it, which,
by the way, if you thought about like today's dollars,
that's eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is insanely
cheap for something like this, Like this is this ballroom
that he's building. The whole product's going to be like
three hundred million dollars, three hundred million dollars. None of
(06:49):
it appropriated, by the way, it's all private donors. I'll
get to that in a second for you, for my
liberal friends who really want to be angry at Donald
Trump for building this thing. By the way, the Whigs
were the political opposition to Andrew Jackson at the time.
The Whig Party read about those guys. They eventually died
out just before the Civil War began because they were
(07:10):
you know, whoosies. But you know, that's beside the point. Anyway,
Jackson had a bunch of people that were basically, we
should have made debt reduction for the American people instead
of building this stupid porch on the north side of
the White House. People, this is an economic downturn, mind you.
This is all over twenty four, thy seven and twenty
nine dollars in eighteen twenty four money, so or eighteen
(07:31):
twenty nine money.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
My bad?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Wow, that's crazy, Right, I got more where this came from.
How about nineteen hundreds for renovations stuff that we talk
about all the time about the White House. Well, it
was already one hundred years old, and we don't even
have any of the wings done yet. And we're talking
about history of the White House, major renovations the White
House has gone through, and things that we have tried
to learn about and things we have tried to reconcile with.
(07:59):
As the Demi crats throw a horrible fit about the
construction of this ninety thousand square football room that is
being built next to the east wing or basically on
the east wing of the White House, no money has
been properly allotted by Congress for this. By the way,
this is all private donors. I have the list of
the donors. By the way, we'll get to that in
(08:19):
a second three hundred million dollars, a big project, but
none of it's coming out of the American government money.
So we got up to nineteen hundred. We've made it
one hundred years with this house. It's basically been burned
to a crisp once. We had the giant pillars of
the portocoes on both sides of the White House. We've
had the outdoor pathways that were built by Thomas Jefferson
(08:42):
pretty quickly after he moves in. And people just bought
bamboozled by this. They can't believe that people are changing
this house.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
The West Wing, it's TV show. It's a great TV show.
Did you watch it?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
No?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
I have? The West Wing is what it's called.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
The West Wing. Yeah, it's a great political television show.
Went on for a long time, but yeah, the West Wing.
Theodore Roosevelt, old Teddy takes office. But the western side
of the White House had a greenhouse on it. I
don't know why, but that's where it was. So Teddy
(09:18):
Roosevelt said, you know what we should do. How about
we put a bigger space for me and the people
around me, my officials, my friends, my cabinet things, of
that nature, that we could do anything with this space
instead of just whatever plants are existing in this greenhouse.
(09:39):
They build the West Wing at sixty five thousand dollars.
Sixty five thousand dollars, that's only two million in today's money.
They were getting great deals on all the lumber and
whatever they were using to build this stuff, which we'll
get to in a second because they had to change
all that after a while. But yeah, nineteen oh two,
(10:00):
the West Wing becomes a thing. The East Wing becomes
a thing. In nineteen forty two, as FDR. The other Roosevelt,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened the other administrative building, the East Wing,
which is kind of, you know, kind of in the
cross because that's where this ballroom is being put and
(10:21):
the first Lady and her staff are doing stuff in
the East Wing. This is all taking place, mind you,
while we're in the midst of World War Two, and
the people who don't like FDR at the time, which
would have been his Republican counterparts, were like, ah, you
can't do that, we need all of this. We should
(10:41):
be tearing down the White House to use his materials
for the war effort, because that's what they were doing right.
They were using everything for the war effort back then,
and they thought Roosevelt was doing this to somehow bolster
his own personal image. The East Wing nineteen forty two,
they were still throwing a fit about it. It was the
other side, though, You know, not to say that them
Ats and Republicans are the exact same as they were
(11:02):
back then, because they certainly are not now. Harry Truman
takes over for FDR when he dies, and once he
assumed office, basically engineers at the White House and we
have finally got ourselves through the war. Eventually they figure
the wooden beams, there's plumbing that's been here for over
one hundred years. The electrical systems are just not good
(11:24):
with the way that we have lined this thing up,
because electricity was still not in its infancy, still in
the forties, but it still is still in some ways
just up in the air as to how efficient electricity
could potentially be for a property, and he wanted to
make sure it was wired correctly. Harry Truman leaves the
White House and doesn't live there for four years of
(11:45):
his term. You know, he's the president for a bit, but.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
He's for four years. He doesn't even live there.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
He doesn't even get the experience of living there because
there was a top to bottom renovation that cost him
at the time five point seven million dollars. Again, that's
only sixty million today if you wanted to completely. They
basically just emptied the whole thing out. The outer shell
was like all that was untouched. Everything inside from the bottom,
like the basement, the foundation, all the way to the
(12:12):
very top that that was completely changed. And they dismantled
the whole interior, putting new wiring, flooring, interior walls, steel
and concrete all throughout the interior. And then they added
two basements and they expanded a new third floor, so
the third floor wasn't there the whole time. They expanded
the third floor. And then you know, Truman was also
(12:36):
a Democrat, so the Republicans were like.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You just built the east wing. What are you doing?
How could you do this?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
We're spending too much money, We're trying to recover from
a huge war. Oh, there you go. Also, there was
a balcony that was added to the second floor on
the south side of the White House, and of course
Truman's opponents.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Were like, no, boot, why do you need a balcony.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Did you know the Rose Garden didn't come into being
until nineteen sixty two, the historic Rose Garden Jacqueline Onassis
Kennedy nineteen sixty two wanted to change up on the
west side of the White House that Colonnaud that Thomas
Jefferson had initially built when he got into office. Well,
(13:30):
they made this new space, the Rose Garden, and oneed
that for formal and official events nineteen sixty two. Think
about all of this stuff. The Oval Office was created
Oval by Taft.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It's a lot of different pieces in here. And I
gotta tell you the third floor being added nineteen twenty seven,
I didn't even mention that, So I mean nineteen fifty
two a one lay. Every president's in nineteen fifty two
has added something to the White House. Nixon added a
bowling alley in nineteen seventy three, one lane of bowling alley.
(14:10):
Imagine hearing that now Trump putting like a golf simulator
in the basement of the White House. Oh, they'd lose
their minds. Obama changed the tennis court that existed into
a basketball court in two thousand and nine. He's a
basketball guy. Shot hoops. Oh, the outrage. What about this
(14:31):
ninety thousand square footballroom. How is it getting paid for?
Who's on the hook for it? I have an answer,
and then we're gonna talk and we're gonna have some
fun with this. What do you want to see happen
in there? Once it's done? Phone lines, We'll take some
phone calls here in a second. I got some crazy
ideas what to do with this ninety thousand square foot
ballroom once it gets done. And Matthew reminded me that
(14:52):
the War of eighteen twelve is named that because that's
the year the war started. Really, yeah, it started in
eighteen twelve, he says, it started in eighteen twelve. Dang,
now that explains everything. It also took place in eighteen thirteen,
eighteen fourteen, eighteen fifteen, but who's counting.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It needs a better name.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
We don't just name wars that, you know, we like
the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War one, World
War two? What was this war? The Return of the Brits?
I don't know, Like whatever you whatever you want to
call it is. We got to do better than the
War of eighteen twelve. It's that's dumb. And yes, I
know it was it started in eighteen twelve. Come on,
what are we doing here? I can tell I can
(15:37):
tell you all forty seven presidents in order. And you
don't think I know the War of eighteen twelve started
in eighteen twelve. Come on, anyway, got a donor list here.
Ninety thousand square feet that's what this ballroom is going
to be. And they say the project is going to
cost around three hundred million dollars. That's really expensive, especially
(15:59):
I just went through a ton of major changes that
took place in a ton of deal like these are.
Everybody's made small changes for the most part because it's
their house for a short time and they want to
leave a little bit their legacy onto the space as
far as it goes, right, But none of them are
going to cost this much. The main difference is Congress
(16:21):
has had to approve the money for that type of
improvement at the White House, and this time that has
not happened. This is all through private donations. Now a
lot of people are you know, And I did this
on my morning show and people were like, did he
go through all the necessary channels? Because its historic property
and it is like technically kind of like what he
(16:43):
worked with the National Park and Park Service and all
that stuff to make sure that they're not doing anything
too crazy here. And I'm just like, man, I just
went through a ton of different renovations that have taken
place on this house for the better part of the
last two hundred and twenty five years. I'm sure every
type of like can we do this, is this gonna work?
Is this gonna make it look good? Like are we
(17:03):
gonna be all right? I'm sure that was exhausted by
Trump and the people around him and the people who
are doing this doing the work.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So I have the list.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Of White House ballroom donors, and the first one is
Donald Trump. He says he's put I don't know how
much money specifically, but he's put money himself into this
as a guy who's not even getting the paycheck to
be the president of the United States. Not that the
paycheck's all that much compared to what he's made in
his life, but you know, there you go.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Here are the others in.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Alphabetical order, and then I'm going to get to a
certain point where I'm gonna go to like private families
and donors that are not companies. But here's the companies
who are donating to the White House Ballroom. I'll tri
a group. I don't know what is that. I'll trey
a group. Oh it's a let me see it is
(17:57):
a American Corps operation, one of the largest producers and
marketers of tobacco products, also medical products. That seems like
a weird thing, but yeah, Altria. There you go. The
tobacco companies. They're back anyway, Amazon, Apple, Booze, Alan Hamilton, Caterpillar,
(18:23):
you know, like the construction machinery Coinbase, Comcast Corporation, Jay
Pepe and Amelia Fan Jewel. I don't know who those
people are, hard Rock International. I think they could throw
a few parties at the White House Ballroom. Google, HP,
(18:46):
Lockheed Martin. Don't let them. Don't let them be careful
with what you do with Lockheed Martin in the ballroom.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Meta platforms so like Facebook, Instagram, that's Zuckerberg's company, Micron Technology, Microsoft,
next Era Energy, Polantier Technologies, Ripple Reynolds, American Team Mobile,
(19:18):
Teather America in the Union, Pacific Railroad.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
With all those large net worths, three hundred million doesn't
seem like so much after all.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Well, I'm not even done yet. But yeah, you would think,
I mean in what in tarnation and Ripple is like
what is Ripple? A ripple American funk band from Michigan
in the nineteen seventies. I don't know where they got
all their money. No, the Ripple group is apparently technology
is a technology company with operational digital experience and expertise.
(19:55):
And yeah, their group provides professional consulting services within the
property industry. There you go, the more you know. Here
are the smaller groups that have made donations. The Adelson
Family Foundation, Stefan E. Brody, Betty Wold Johnson Foundation, Charles
(20:17):
and Marissa Kiss, Korea, Edward and Shari Glazer, Harold Ham,
Benjamin Leon Jr. The Lutnik Family, the Laura and Isaac
Peerlmuter Foundation, stephen A. Schwartzman, Konstantine Sokoloff, Kelly Leffler and
(20:38):
Jeff Spretcher, Paolo TIREMANI and Cameron and Tyler Winklevass. You
know who's not paying for it?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
You and me.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
And anyone that's not on LA three hundred million dollars. Yeah,
you don't think that Between Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft,
they couldn't have just teamed up to pay for it
all themselves. They probably could have. They didn't need just
their money though, because there are a bunch of other
people trying to get in on this.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, ladies and.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Gentlemen, those are the people that are involved in building
the ballroom. Now comes to question, what are we going
to do with a ninety thousand square footballroom? I have
some ideas. Do you even know how big that is?
I can tell you good situation here of space that
we're about to run into with a ninety thousand square footballroom. Now,
(21:40):
have you been to a party? Think about all the
great party's weddings, things of that nature that you've been at.
That is it a ballroom? Is it a convention center?
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You know, you had like some sort of you know,
ted talk or whatever. What Like if you're in a
medical field, maybe you go there and you hear some
people talk. Would be like to rent out space at
the White House to do that? Is that something you
can even do? Ninety thousand square feet is a lot
of space. I tried to figure out exactly what that
(22:12):
would be in ways, I like I could understand what
ninety thousand square.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Feet look like.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Well, according to the square footage of an American football field,
including of course the end zones, that is fifty seven
six hundred square feet. So think about that. You could
fit one and a half football fields. It would be tight,
(22:41):
and it would depend on like the shape of your
ninety thousand square feet right, like how much of a
rectangle is it more? You know, squareish? Like what does
it look like? But theoretically you could fit one and
a half American football fields into the area of this
ballroom once it's done. I think about a cosco if
you're at a Costco warehouse, a medium sized Costco would
(23:03):
be somewhere in the vicinity of ninety thousand square feet.
You ever walked inside one of those and looked around
and been like, wow, there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Of space in here. This's big.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
That's how big this uh, this ballroom is going to
look like. Think about your big city convention centers and
exhibit halls. Think about c CHI Health Center. I'm not
exactly sure what their convention center is when all of
the rooms are like put together, but it's got to
be kind of close to what we're talking about. Ninety
(23:31):
thousand square feet one and a half football fields. I
mean that's a lot. So before I get into some
ideas of how many people can actually fit in here
for different events, and then what we might be able
to do with it. Our phone lines are open and
I'll take these calls before we hit the top of
the hour. Dan is on our line at four h two, five, five,
eight eleven ten. Dan, what's on your mind today?
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I don't know if you see if you caught this
part or not earlier. I've been in and out of this.
But the reason of the Truman rebuild on that was
because Margaret Truman's piano all through the floor above the
dining room, which is why they had to do a
total gut and rebuilding, why they couldn't live there anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Wow, imagine being on the in the dining room, just
like an actual piano falls on you. It's not like
a Tom and Jerry cartoon, like an actual pianofl on you.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
That would have been a bad way to go man.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
As a time my understanding, they were actually eating dinner
at the dining room and stuff came crashing down to
the table while they're eating, and the leg of the
piano was sticking through the ceiline or floor or combo thereop.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Wow, well, Dan, that's interesting to look into that. That'd
be a that's a funny white house anecdote. I don't
know how you could be outraged for thinking, you know,
maybe we should probably update the infrastructure of this one
hundred and fifty year old.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
House, you know.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
But yeah, that's how bad the structure was during that time.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, well, Dan, I appreciate you the note. Thanks for
calling in today.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Good Joe, thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Amy's on our phone line for two five five, eight
eleven ten. Welcome in, Amy, you're on eleven tin kfy B. Nope,
she going never mind. We'll call back Gamy if you want.
All right, if you're having a cocktail reception standing room
only kind of cocktail reception, roughly, uh, you know, that's
(25:14):
like a six square feet per person kind of thing.
Think about like what that would look like. Six square
feet that's enough space for you to kind of like
be up and walk around and have elbow room and
all that stuff. Basically fifteen thousand people could like be
in there and be stuffed together. Now, that doesn't include
like a stage or any auxiliary things that you might
(25:34):
have up If you want a theater or auditorium seating.
In this type of situation, you could fit between nine
and eleven thousand seats if you really tightened it up
so like you just kind of line people up at
the stage up the front. I don't know if you're
ever going to need something that big for this space,
but you know something in mind, I'm thinking more banquet
like the round tables, where you know, like a wedding
reception where there's like twelve seats at a table, and
(25:56):
you know you have a bunch of round tables. We're
looking at in the range of six thousand and seven
thousand guests could comfortably fit. Again, this doesn't count any
potential auxiliary areas of the ballroom that you want to
keep for something else. But if you're just cramming this
many people in there, six thousand people, if you're having
a meeting with some tables and chairs across it, like
classroom style, forty five hundred to five thousand is what
(26:19):
you're looking at. If you're doing like a big convention,
like an exhibit, like an exhibition hall or whatever, like
a home expo or whatever, you could fit like nine
hundred booths here. That's how big this space is. Again,
that's with you know, all that stuff. And if you
wanted to part cars in there and you just turn
it into a parking lot, think about three hundred cars
(26:41):
being able.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
To fit in there.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Kind of idea, because you need like three hundred square
feet per car because you're counting the aisles as well.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
You have to keep for cars to get in and out. Yeah,
there you go.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
So those are some size estimates for this ninety in
square foot space. Now I have a couple of crazy ideas.
Number One, the first thing that we do is we
get the White House Classic. They play that Battle for
Atlantis basketball tournament during like Thanksgiving time in the Bahamas,
(27:17):
and they play it in an area like it's in
the Bahamas. It's at a resort, and they basically turn
the ballroom at that resort into a basketball court and
it only seats like eight hundred to one thousand people,
Like not a lot of seating for people, but they
have a full on basketball court that can be there
in like you can play basketball like legitimate college basketball games.
(27:40):
I want the White House Classic. I want eight teams
from around America to get invited to play in the
White House Classic. They can stay in the East wing
of the White House and they have all these like
American themes and everything, and then those eight teams play
a tournament at the beginning of a season, like we're
about to embark on the early season, you know tournaments.
(28:01):
I want one of those in the White House, and
we turned the White House Ballroom into a basketball arena
for a week.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
That would be epic.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Remember when they used to do it on the Battleship
out side, Like that was so so epic.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It was, But outside you have variables you can't control,
and you're on the ocean. Yeah, and it's like the
condensation on the floor made it slippery and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
It creates a problem. You know what you could do?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
How about you go inside this ballroom, which is gonna
have plenty of space to have an actual basketball game.
Put some temporary stands in there so people can watch
the president and people in the White House can bop
in and out and like watch the games.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It'll be awesome.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Another thing that we could do, how about we Chris
in the new White House ballroom with a giant bochi
ball tournament.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I've done the math.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You can do like thirty six to forty Bachie courts
comfortably and make it international. So like Putin comes over
with one of his Krimlin buddies. Maybe we get like
Mark Carney from Canada and a polar bear together or something.
Trump and Milania can like be together and you just
play bochi ball until we have like a winner. What
a great way to celebrate the new ballroom, but also
(29:08):
to try to mend relationships with people from all over
the world. Come play in our bochi ball tournament. Come on,
it's amazing tonight. I think I'm gonna go play some tennis.
It's a little cool, but you know, like to play
some tennis while the weather's still cooperating. So yeah, just
trying to get myself going. How about this ninety thousand
(29:29):
square foot ballroom at the White House. The US Open
tennis tournament takes place in New York. They always have
these like warm up tennis tournaments, like in August before
the US Open, one of the biggest tournaments in Cincinnati
for instance, right like they do like like six weeks
(29:50):
leading up to that, after like the Wimbledon takes place,
that's when everybody stops playing in kind of the England
in the European area, and they to the United States
and there's like a bunch of tour stops that you
can play in those tournaments around the United States. Let's
put one with one court, an invitational between like sixteen
(30:12):
men and sixteen women, and over the course of a
week do like an all star tennis tournament in this
incredibly beautiful ninety thousand square football room.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
There should be plenty of room for that.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
It's hard to imagine that working inside of a space,
but there's so much room.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
You could do whatever you want in there.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, you try to think football field in a half,
I'm trying to think, like, man, okay, I'm walking into
this tennis match or multiple tennis matches. You're inside of
a building, but it's not a stadium.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
It's a ballroom. It's a ballroom.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Like it's hard not even just a ballroom, it's a
ballroom in like like it's connected to the White House.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Yeah, just him having a hard time like visualizing it.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
That's what makes you so fun and so cool. It's
it's like there hasn't been a venue like this in
the United States where it's on the grounds of the
hallowed White House grounds, but you can do anything in there,
Like I know they want to throw these big lavish
parties take outside the box here. Yeah, a few people
(31:17):
were like, hey, what about like the MMA fights that
Trump is suggesting, Like, I know they're supposed to be
like outside and stuff, but yeah, you know, you could
have a more controlled, less variable situation if you just
move the cage into the ballroom and put seats around it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, that would be cool.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
No matter what sporting event we put here. It's really
for television, right, because how many people are like how
many realistically, how many people are going to be able
to sit in temporary seating for any of these things,
whether it's the basketball idea or the tennis idea or
whatever or MMA and fit in there while still having
(31:58):
plenty of room to walk round, right?
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Would this be like on on ESPN but then also
c SPAN at the same time, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
The Bachi ball tournament with all the dignitaries that is
being like live twenty four to seven while the games
are going on on c SPAN. It's like, okay, so
Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is playing
with Manny Pacquiao, the longtime Filipino ambassador former boxer, and
(32:30):
they are partners for some reason in our international bachi
ball tournament of all these dignitaries, and they are taking
on the team of the crazy Venezuelan guy and the
brand new woman who's in charge of Japan, the Japanese
Prime minister, and they're playing boschi ball together.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
What's the line?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Not dude, the Japanese Prime Minister will probably punched that guy.
I mean, honestly, oh, that'd be yeah, but you know,
it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
That's my idea this but they don't let me to
choose these things. And this is what I'm trying to
figure out, right, It's just like, how could we make
this work? Let me figure this out. How many people
realistically could be spectators for a college basketball game in
(33:24):
this space, because I you know, it would have to
be like a lottery system. And if we do like
the college basketball idea, you would want the schools to
have the ability to give their parents, family members, anyone
relating to the team, anybody at the school. You'd probably
allot them like five hundred tickets or so.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
You'd think, yeah, they'd probably have a system.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So and then just how do you like you would
have to kind of move in like these temporary stamp
It wouldn't maybe look the best, but you know, you'd
have to put those in there.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
It look great, It look fine on television, though I'm
sure how it looked inside would be maybe questionable.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
They say, like, if you really wanted to make this work,
and I doubt this, you could get comfortably eight thousand
people into the space. I'm thinking like you probably set
it up for like one thousand, like two thousand maybe,
and it's gonna be like a lottery system for people
to get tickets to something like this. The same thing
(34:31):
with the UFC thing. The random person is not going
to have a chance to really do this. No, the
random person is not going to be giving access to
go see the UFC fights on the White House lawn.
But you could do like a lottery system and then
sell the tickets for like five thousand dollars each. I mean,
(34:52):
this is a capitalistic society. There's people out there that
would pay for that. People paid that much to go
see Taylor Swift. People are paying that much to go
to Wrestle Maine. Yeah, why wouldn't people do that to
be a part of this crazy unique event on the
White House lawn. That's a simple question, and it would
be intimate, right because you know that there's gonna be
a finite amount of space that people are gonna be
able to enjoy this, and how are you even getting
(35:15):
people in and out of there? This would be the
other thing, right, So you know it's hard to get
into the White House. They used to do tours of
the White House, and they still probably do, but you know,
it's a lot more difficult. I think the thing that probably,
like I would the first thing that I would do
would be, you know what kind of access from the
(35:37):
outside into the ballroom without having to go through the
White House, because you're not going to let these people
have access to the East Wing who are not like credentialed,
you know, much security risk. That would be just have
a bunch of randos like walk in the halls of
the East Wing. You can't do that. So obviously they
wouldn't do that. But then we have to set up
(35:58):
like concession stands and stuff for people drinking beer in
this ballroom. Of course they are, right, got to get
an official beer sponsor for the White House. Maybe somebody
brews some White House beer. And then like Georgetown or
George Washington University, like the schools that are in Washington, DC,
they can benefit from like nil for people buying the beer. Look, man,
(36:19):
sign me up, Like put me in charge of this.
This is a money making venture. Donald Trump, and all
these people like Apple and Amazon and Microsoft and Meta
and Google and HP and all these people are donating
money into this giant ballroom. Let's get crazy, all right.
I will be the brand new White House ballroom events planner,
(36:39):
and I will book out a calendar's worth of crazy ideas.
And this is a president that I think would be like,
you know what, that's.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Not such a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And I think we could do this stuff like while
he's still in office. I know jd Vance, who may
very well be the next president of the United States
if we can keep it republic. He's a sports guy
who loves Ohio State, right, you know what, like, hey,
let's get the buck eyes and for my college basketball
tournament idea. You know what I mean, I don't need
(37:18):
a job, but I do this for free, Like Donald Trump,
this would be my passion projects to help them book
this thing out with fun, exciting ideas that also could
make everybody a bunch of money.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
It can happen.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
There's a lot of rich people in this country are
looking for stuff like this to do. And we have
Mike on the phone line today. Welcome in, Mike. What
do you think about this for Amy?
Speaker 6 (37:39):
I think you'd be fantastic candidate for that. I think
in charge of the ballroom. But obviously everybody in the
White House and government's kind of a tie where he
got secretary of war, you got the borders, are got
the drugs are so you could be the balls are
in charge of everything related to balls. Hmm, great, hmm.
I mean what to be a title? That'd be a
(38:02):
legendary title.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, let me think on that, Mike.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I'll get back to you. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
Yeah, we'll hold the line for.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
You, all right, all right, just hold it warm and
uh we'll see. I'll fondle my.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Brain for a second and think you figure that all right?
All right, sounds good. I just appreciate it. Huh, yeah,
you know it is. It is a ballroom, so in
theory it is a room for balls, but I was
thinking more like basketballs and botchy balls and things like
that can also go into it. So maybe maybe he's
(38:39):
onto something there. I might adjust the name a little
bit like the spheres are. How's that because all these
things are also spheres?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
That could be true, but then you're kind of dipping
into the the sphere.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, but it's interesting with even the sphere. And they
can't that's a that's an actual term. You can't just
like hog that could we put a basketball tournament in
the sphere. That wouldn't even make sense. The whole point
of the sphere is like the effects on the big
screen behind you. Look, I don't know, you know it's
(39:13):
it would be an honor to be in charge of
booking and being the event planner for the White House Ballroom.
I'm just telling you, not a whole lot of regular
parties or balls, if you will what take place under
my watch. I'm gonna be booking this thing out for
all sorts of crazy things we're gonna do. We're gonna
do a lot of wild stuff, and you know what,
(39:35):
I'm gonna be down with it. If you have some
ideas of what to put in here. I got a
bunch of emails here I'm gonna read. I want you
to call me four h two five five, eight eleven ten.
What do we do with a ninety thousand square foot
space at the White House that we I mean see
seemingly there are endless possibilities. No idea is a bad
idea except calling me the balls are I had a person,
(39:58):
I have a lot of people in here that Michael
said the White House is six stories high. Assuming the
add on is going to be similar for esthetic looks,
it could be up to six floors and each floor
would only be fifteen thousand square feet each, because that's
what you do with the house, right, you know, it's
just like you say, ninety thousand square foot, but it
could be over several floors, right.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
That's interesting to consider. I don't know if it would
be don't like that. I don't think it would be.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I think this would be even if it has like
a high ceiling or something, it would be like a
singular floor.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You would think. That's what I think of with the
ball room.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, I agree, But for argument's sake, let's say it's
six floors of fifteen thousand square foot each. If it
does have every floor, could we still now if we
have normal ceiling heights, then that's not gonna work, right.
You would have to realistically have higher ceilings to our
basketball idea or our tennis idea, yeah, or any of
(40:51):
our audience. Yeah, you would need a higher ceiling. So
but again, for argument's sake, could I do my idea
with a high ceiling fifteen one thousand square foot ballroom.
The answer is yes, I can. Because a college basketball
(41:11):
court uses roughly nine and eighty square feet. Well, that's
just over half of the space that I have allotted.
I could still fit in seven to eight hundred expectation
or spectators via expectation, And if we had engineered layered bleachers,
we could get twelve hundred people in there. Still, my
(41:33):
ballroom could still be good enough at fifteen thousand square
feet for my white House Classic College Basketball tournament. Also,
if you wanted to have a banquet, you could still
fit one thousand people in there. If you had like
a theater auditorium seating with like a stage and a
speaker and everybody's just kind of sitting there, you could
fit up to fifteen hundred to seventeen hundred people cocktail hour.
(41:54):
It'd be very dense, but twenty five hundred people could
pack in there. You could have one hundred and fifty
boosts for some sort of exhibition or expo or whatever,
and it would be a parking lot that could fit.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Fifty cars with aisle. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
My Bocci tournament takes a little bit of a hit though,
you know, instead of fitting forty Boci courts at a time,
And I mean think about that. If I had forty
Boci courts with the whole ninety thousand square foot, if
we trimmed it to just fifteen thousand square feet, then
I could really only put eight in there.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
But then what if it's like promotion relegation, So like
the people at the top, those are your winners, your champions,
your you know, top of the league.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
So what you're saying is we still play Bacci across
all ninety thousand square foot. Yeah, but just like every
floor is a different, different level that you have to get,
so you're trying to get to the top. How many
days is this? Like, could we just make this like
a week long tournament and you just played bacci like
twenty games of Baci every day, like that's all you
do if you get sick of Baci. I think I'd
play Bacci all day one day. By the second day,
(43:01):
I'd be like, ugh, can I do something else. That's
the thing, Like I want this Bocci thing to work,
but it has to be Like every dignitary has to
have some representation, So like all of the world's leaders
have to find a way, Like like Secretary General of
NATO Mark Ruda has to come be a part of
(43:21):
our BACI tournament. But we're all waiting with baited breath.
Who his partner's going to be, like all of these
world leaders, like pick a celebrity partner or something. Could
you imagine Bad Bunny getting paired up with Mark Ruda,
the Secretary General NATO at the White House for the
BOCI ball tournament. Now Bad Bundy's become a political figure
here lately, so you know, maybe that's a bad idea,
(43:43):
but I'd watch. Maybe Bad Bundy's awesome at BACI ball.
Who's to say he was a pretty solid caddy and
happy Gilmore too, for whatever it's worth. Had another email
come in here about some of these Connie and Carneye said,
(44:04):
has anyone suggested the Miss America pageant or the Miss
USA pageant? We know President Trump loves being surrounded by
beautiful women.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
That is true.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
That actually I think is a legitimate, Like you legitimately
could make a case that that that's something he would
go for.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
That's a really good idea, extremely realistic too. You could
put a stage in theresible. Yeah, yeah, and you know
how many people are watching that on TV versus in person.
Of course, you'd want the families who all Miss America
finalists there to get a little atmosphere and clap in
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
But we've already established so you can fit enough people
to make that atmosphere work and the music and all
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Right, you know.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
You're onto something there, Connie. That's good. I'll put that
on my list of things I'm going to schedule out
when I become the official czar of the White House Ballroom.
Pat's on a phone line at four oh two five
five eight eleven ten. Welcome Pat. What's on your mind today?
Speaker 7 (44:57):
Hey, Emery, I just kind of caught the ta Lendo
your conversation here about the ballroom, and I think you
just need to be aware too that this isn't all
just ballroom space. There's got to be like blobby space,
and there's gonna be probably food prep space, bathrooms and
all the other stuff that goes with this thing. So
(45:19):
it's not ninety thousand square feet of ballroom. It's you know,
there's a lot of other stuff that has to go
along with that to support What.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Do you think.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
What do you think like seventy thousand of the square
feet I can use.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
For a tournament?
Speaker 7 (45:34):
Probably not that much. I mean again, I think they
said it was built for like six hundred people. So
if you just start doing the math, say fifteen square
feet per person, what is that? I'm not sure what
that number is.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, that seems like way less than ninety thousand square
feet like less.
Speaker 7 (45:53):
Yeah. Yeah, again, I don't know how they got to
that number, but there's obviously more two just ballroom space,
and it's going to be you know, that big of
a space is going to have to have some height
to it. So it's not going to be six stories, right,
It's probably going to be maybe two or three of
the most, Yeah, because you've got to have some height
(46:15):
when you got that big of a four space. So anyway,
some quick thoughts.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Yeah, well, Pat, I'm going to make sure that all
this is accounting for when I become the guy who's
the event planner for the White House Ballroom, I'll make
sure that we get the space that we need for
these events. So I'm glad that you ask my attention.
It's very important. Yeah, thank you for your service as
an American patout. Yeah, you know, you know, I can't
do this all alone. I have to surround myself with
(46:41):
good people. Maybe Pat becomes one of my advisors as
I take the incredibly prestigious role of being the event
planner for the White House ballroom?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Can I get elected to that position?
Speaker 7 (46:52):
Like?
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Is that something that the American people can suggest me
for or is that like, is that a cabinet level
position that I have to get confirmed by the Senate?
Speaker 2 (47:01):
I can?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
I could suck up to the senators real good.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
I would imagine that this would probably be in a
presidential appointment, right, president would be like, this is who
I want to schedule the events? Or his cabinet could
have let you know, choose.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
That's the thing is, if I'm a cabinet level worker,
then I'd have to be approved by the Senate, and
you know, I can technically be considered a pretty controversial
figure based on the fact that you know, I've been
in radio my whole life. I don't have a lot
of experience in planning events, but This is just too
good of an opportunity to pass up. And maybe my
(47:34):
charisma would allow us the opportunity to book better acts,
attract more important people, better teams or athletes to be
a part of our insane events at this brand new ballroom.
I don't know. I think we're onto something here. Welcome
into the show, Ray, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (47:52):
Hey, Emory?
Speaker 6 (47:53):
Great show as always?
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Thanks.
Speaker 6 (47:55):
I love calling and talking.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
If you want to job as.
Speaker 7 (48:01):
Events manager putting on events in this new.
Speaker 6 (48:05):
Ballroom, suggest to him that they do a haunted house.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
Yeah, I don't know if any want suggested that I
have it, and.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
You know what, a white house, haunted house. The possibilities
would be endless.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
And then to make sure that you scare the pants
off of everybody who goes through it at the end,
have a twelve foot or a twenty foot picture a Hillary. Ah,
there is just do it.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
There's a lunchline boom. All right, Ray, I'll keep that
under advisement. Yeah, thanks, buddy, appreciate the call. That's good.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Steve's on our phone line four two five eleven ten.
What you got for me today, Steve?
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Hey, Emory, I used to live there and I go
there pretty regularly on business. The thing that came across
my mind when you thought when you said six hundred
people in this venue, were everybody's gonna park I mean,
it's insane around the White House with security and there's
no parking anywhere. I'm trying to imagine six hundred people
trying to go to that venue for an event. It's
(49:10):
gonna be a logistics nightmare.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Well, well, Steve, wait until I get three thousand people
to go there for a college basketball game that I'm
gonna somehow fit into the confines of this space, and
then it'll really be a mess. I mean, we're gonna
have to have like some you know what we're gonna do.
We're gonna pay shuttle drivers. We're gonna stimulate the Washington
DC economy. We're gonna pay shuttle drivers to We're gonna
park at Nationals Park, like you know, five or six
(49:35):
miles away, and we're gonna have people jump on shuttles
and everybody's gonna get shuttled so they can have fun,
go into the ballroom and not have to worry about
the parking situation, and then within thirty minutes of the
event actually ending, the shuttles will come back and start
picking people up and taking them back to the parking lot. Hey,
there we go, right, Steve, I got this figured out.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't go in the National Ballpark
neighborhood with a loaded weapon. And so I'm not sure
I want to be parking cars there, let alone shuttling
them back and forth. I'm sure if you haven't driven
through that traffic, it's just nightmare. Yeah, I'm a National
Park up to the White House.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
I appreciate the call, Steve. Thanks, IM running out of
time this hour. But I will say this, I actually
have ridden a bike through there, and I have gone
to National's Park twice, and I have walked through there
at nighttime both times i've gone. It's not the best
spot to be, you know, hanging out in But again,
maybe I'm just a little bit of the cavalier. I
enjoy I enjoyed my time walking around and taking the
(50:35):
public bikes and stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
But it is what it is.
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