Tim Barton [00:00:07] Welcome to the Wall Builder Show. This is the intersection of faith and culture. I am Tim Barton. I am the president of WallBuilders, joined by my father, David Barton, who is currently on the road. I just got back in town. We both were traveling this weekend. And our our third cohort, Rick Green, is also traveling this weekend. But he also ended up losing his voice. And so we told him he could rest as we are recording this program now and hopefully be able to join us for the remainder of the week. Dad, last week we were airing some programs that you had previously recorded from a series we had done several years ago. And so we really didn't talk about a lot of news that was happening. But there's certainly been a few things that have caused some meltdown of the left. That have and in fairness, I understand that the media needs something to run headlights on. I understand that the Democrats want to distract from the shutdown and they want to blame somebody else for it. And so by default, sometimes things that they are making an issue, it's just because they needed something to make an issue, not because it even makes sense to make this an issue, such as a privately funded expansion of the White House to make a ballroom large enough to have really nice events. And they're saying this is Trump wanting to do this to to bolster his ego or to prove that he's the king, which is just silly and crazy for lots and lots of reasons, because by the time this thing gets completed, he's gonna be leaving office. So the idea he's doing this to in some way show that he's a king, it makes no sense at all. And again, the fact that this is privately funded, and and and they're saying he is being this fascist for doing it. It seems like if you were the dictator, the communist, the fascist, you would do a mandatory tax on all the people and they would fund this endeavor. Not that you would be doing this from private individual funds, from people that you work with. And and there's a lot of stuff we can get to with the shutdown, with military funding, with drug boats from Venezuela. There's a lot we could talk about, but let's start with the White House expansion and people losing their minds. Dad, what is your take on this? 

David Barton [00:02:34] Well, what you've got is I'm go back to the White House built. They started in seventeen ninety two when George Washington laid the cornerstone, okay? So they finished the White House initially in eighteen hundred and it's gone through ten major additions and renovations over its two hundred and twenty-five years. So I what's that average to? One every every twenty, twenty-two, twenty-five years is what we're looking at. And the expansion that Trump is proposing would add a ballroom, it'd be about ninety thousand square feet, which if people don't know, that's the equivalent of two acres under roof. So that now makes it where you could have I I've been at at at Christmas dinners and banquets at the White House and others, and it's always really, really tight 'cause when you got something as old as that building is, they they weren't I mean, they only had three million in the nation back then, not three hundred and fifty million like today. So everything was a lot smaller. But 

Tim Barton [00:03:32] When it's a lot smaller, you you can only fit a couple hundred people. And even though a couple hundred people might seem and feel like a lot, you couldn't even fit Congress or the Senate in there. You you you really couldn't fit if you wanted to invite all the governors and their spouses and families. I mean, that that would be packed and crowded. And so you could have a very small, well defined group that y'all could do an event together, but you couldn't do a large event, and especially not if you wanted to do something to host multiple nations and and you know some of their dignitaries, etc. You really couldn't do something large and grand in the White House. And even though certainly there have been renovations, which I'm sure we're going to come to in a minute, to walk through some of those, because some of the more expensive renovations, people aren't talking about at all. Not to digress, we'll get there in a minute. But President Trump, part of what he wanted to do is not just have a larger ballroom, but something that is far more grand that when people step into it, they are instantly impressed. And one of the things President Trump has acknowledged is he felt like there were there were things about the White House that when you have some of these leaders coming from other nations, and whether it be right the Saudi Arabia, Qatar, whatever, some of these nations where they do more or less have these dictators and these high-level families, and they're all billionaires, and so they have gold plated everything and it's ornate and it's grand and beautiful, and they step into the White House, and it doesn't feel like you just stepped into the most powerful building, arguably speaking, on the globe, it feels like a step down. And President Trump wanted there to be something that was representative of the nation in the sense that America is the number one power in the world right now. And so if you come to that nation's White House building, right? That the the home of the president, it ought to feel like you are in one of the most significant buildings you've ever stepped in in your life, if not the most significant. And that's one of the things President Trump has tried to do to upgrade. And again, he's using largely and if not exclusively private funds to do this, which is remarkable. 

David Barton [00:05:48] Yeah, it is. And you had the point too. I mean, I've been in the White House multiple times, and it's it's always been the Oval Office where where you would meet with s significant leaders. It's always been pretty simple and pretty plain. And now it's awesome to me because there's portraits up there that were done of the founding fathers by people in their time when they were still alive. And I mean, it's just awesome to see historically what's there, but it's not a real impressive room. It's not particularly big, because again, it's one of those things that was added a long time ago, and there weren't that many people in America at the time, but it is it really is a change with the times. And what's kind of funny about this is they're talking about how he's destroying the historic aspect of the White House. And wait a minute, timeout. The part he's changing was added by Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. I mean, he's not going back and knocking out the part that George Washington did and John Adams and Thomas Sheriffson. That's not what's being done. What what is a quasi-modern addition that was done in World War II, and he's taking out part of that to add on to it. And so even even the description,  I can just almost guarantee you that the people who are chirping and yelling about this don't even know enough of the history of the White House to know whether that's really a significant part that's being taken out. And that is part of the fun, is you go back and see how this thing came about, and e even what we consider the Oval Office was not part of what the Founding Fathers did. That's a much more modern addition. There was no Oval Office until the twentieth century. And so a lot of what we consider to be traditional White House is not as old as we think it is. And that's what's kind of fun about actually going back and looking at some of these milestones on on how the White House actually came to be what it is now. Well, yeah, Dad, I I put up a list. 

Tim Barton [00:07:42] Of kind of significant additions and updates and expansions to the White House. And you have James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, you have Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft, Calvin Coolidge, FDR, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, all of them making expansions, updates, etc. And when I'm saying expansions and updates, not update in the sense of like interior decoration, because this is the one that's also interesting. Guess who spent way more money than this in renovations of the White House? Well, that was President Barack Obama. Now, in fairness, this was something that the 2008 Congress actually authorized some of this spending, but President Obama got to direct where some of that spending went for whether it was federal buildings because there was some discretionary spending, there were some things maybe specifically for the White House. But over his his eight years as president, it it was more than three hundred and I think man, 70 something million dollars. Oh, 376 million, that's a number. 376 million is the estimated total that was spent during his presidency, and the majority of this, if not it's it's I I will say not all of it, just to be safe, but the vast majority of this was taxpayer dollars. And so you have really in the last decade plus, I mean, we're not that far removed from when President Obama was there, and President Obama spent 370 plus million dollars. And dad, honestly, when I was looking this up, I was going, man, what all what all happened? What all did they work on to spend that much money at the White House? And the reason I had to look this up, and and this is the point I want to make. The reason I had to look this up is because I don't remember anybody talking about this. Had this been a big deal, I feel like I might have remembered it. I remembered him building a basketball court, but that was actually just adding more or less a basketball hoop onto the existing tennis court. That they did a little work and expansion, but it wasn't a brand new structure they're building. It wasn't a brand new court or facade they're building. So that was one of the more minimal things he did. But again, the reason I bring it up, nobody in the media seemed to care. When President Obama was dropping over three hundred and seventy million dollars on the White House, and that's again largely taxpayer funded, but when President Trump is going to add an addition that is being funded with private dollars, the left is losing their mind. It it's just crazy. 

David Barton [00:10:24] Well, it is crazy. And I you know, if you haven't been to the White House and you don't you're not gonna see many pictures of it, quite frankly, because that's a security thing. They just don't put many pictures out and and taking pictures in in in certain areas, you're just not gonna do. So th it's it's not all that easy. It's not impossible. It's not all that easy to to kind of see the footprint of the White House. And some of it's come out in a general way right now. But I I mean, just from where it started, as small as it was to where it is now, it is remarkable. And and I mean, you point out the three hundred and seventy six million by Obama to- I mean that's that's more than what Trump's doing. And as you point out, it's it's being paid for by private funds. So just kind of reviewing and going back through, okay, seventeen ninety two, George Washington lays the cornerstone for the White House. It was not called the White House until a century later, but laid the cornerstone for it and they finished it in time for John Adams to move in for his last several weeks. So John Adams is a one term president, founding father moved in, he and Abigail were the first to inhabit the White House, and it lasted for a few weeks, and then he lost the election, and Thomas Jefferson comes in. Thomas Jefferson didn't do anything to it necessarily. Jefferson's two terms, and then Madison comes in and Madison didn't do anything to it. The British did. The British mandated a remodeling by burning the White House. 

Tim Barton [00:11:53] Well so so more specifically, Madison did not initiate any updates or additions. That's right. The British initiated, and after they set fire to it, and of course there's that provenance or rainstorm that comes and and largely puts the fire out, then he gets to do the the reconstruction, the remodel project after the British have set fire to the White House. 

David Barton [00:12:14] And so he does, he he rebuilds it. And this time, and it's interesting, that's when they started using wood and timber in the White House to rebuild, was after the fire, because before that was stone, but the fire was strong enough that it damaged the stones and broke and popped the stones. And so to make the rebuilding be faster, they rebuilt with wood and timber in certain places, which becomes a problem a century and a half later. So then Monroe added the South Portico kind of reception area in 1824, and Andrew Jackson, you mentioned him. He added the North Portico. So now we're kind of making it more permanent, and we're getting receiving areas and some areas where you can kind of go out and wander around a little bit. But then you got to get to Teddy Roosevelt before it it makes some pretty big changes. One of them, that's the first time it gets called the White House. They put whitewash on the stones after the burning, but it was never called the White House. It was the president's mansion. And so that began a bunch of changes. That's where the the president's office moves to the second floor and the West Wing gets gets going. So all that is under Teddy and the West Wing is the presidential side of the White House. That's where a lot of the offices are. The West Wing, there's a building added, the Eisenhower Executive Office building now is part of part of that West Wing complex. So then William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing, and he's the one who created the Oval Office in 1909. So no oval oval office for the first century of presidents. That comes in with William Howard Taft. And then in 27, Calvin Coolidge says, hey, let's take the attic and make that into a third floor in the White House. So that becomes the next big change as they they add that extra third floor, because now you're you're needing more government offices, et cetera. And the big change is in 1942 when Franklin Roosevelt adds the East Wing. And that East Wing is added. The West Wing was added earlier, and that's where so many of the offices are. The East Wing is added, and this is what Trump is adding on to. 

Tim Barton [00:14:25] Point out here too that if when we're talking about the East Wing, this is where if people go to DC and their congressmen can help them sign up for a White House tour, the East Wing is part of what you get to see on the tours. That that is the public side. The West Wing is where the majority of the significant things happen, right? That the West Wing is where not only you have the Oval Office, you have the cabinet room, the situation room, where the significant things happen is the West Wing. The reason it matters again is you have the the left, the Democrats, the news outlets losing their mind that he is expanding the East Wing when historically very little of historic value has happened in the East Wing in the grand scheme of things. The West Wing is where the significant things happened. That's where some of the more memorable things have happened. Historically speaking, that's where the important meetings take place. And and again, it's just it's the levels of irony. He is expanding the East Wing, the the place where people go to have tours, that's what's being expanded. And it doesn't make a lot of sense that people are losing their mind. Now, I know there's more on this we want to get to. I do want to get into maybe some of the shutdown, some of the military funding, because the fact that you now have private individuals not only helping fund the expansion of the White House, but now helping fund the military to make sure they have paychecks because Democrats did not want to fund the government and therefore military don't get paid unless they had some of their pet initiative projects done, which we'll get into some of that, and maybe even Venezuela, but we need to take a break first. So we'll be right back on the WallBuilder show. Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. This is Tim Barton. I'm the president of WallBuilders, joined by my dad, David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders, and we've been discussing the White House expansion project under President Trump, the new ballroom on the East Wing, and how the Democrats and media pundits have been losing their minds over the idea that President Trump is trying to add something on to the White House. So they're not saying he's adding on, they're saying he's destroying the White House, he's destroying the people's house. That this is not his house, it's our house. We're the taxpayers. But then there's levels of irony because the expansion is all privately funded. So it's costing the taxpayers nothing. If you go back historically, I don't think there was a single expansion update or improvement before President Trump that did not include tax dollars. And so the fact that President Trump is now the only president who is expanding, building, making this place even more impressive and doing it with private funds, that ought to be applauded. Instead, there is a remaining group of snowflakes that are melting under this. And so, Dad, we were talking about this. You were going through some of the presidents who have historically done things to to build, to add, to expand. And actually, even the fact that the East Room was built by President FDR. So this is is not historically one of the older sections of the Capitol. This is one of the newer sections that President Trump has been expanding, but you were going through some of that list of presidents that have added on, updated, improved, expanded. 

David Barton [00:18:59] Yeah, and the White House expansions. And and so as you go through FDR, that as you point out, that's what Trump's doing, is adding on to that part added to by FDR. But the the other big change is after FDR, it's Truman, and this is probably the biggest structural change of the White House. So if you want to gripe about somebody destroying the White House, choose Harry Truman, except I I support what he did because what he did was going back to the war of eighteen twelve when they came in and built the stuff with timbers, by the time you get 140 years down the road, some of those timbers aren't holding up like they need to. And so under Truman, Truman had to move out of the White House for four years. They basically gutted it. They went in, took out the the wood, they put steel in to hold the the roof and the stuff together. There was a basement, but they added two sub basements. They put actually concrete foundation down. It had not had a concrete foundation before. So the biggest redo of the White House was under Truman, and it was all structural and it destroyed a whole lot of the the historical traditional stuff that was there because it just wasn't holding up. So it really when people gripe about what's being done in the White House proves pretty much they don't know their history of of what happened or why this is being done or anything else. So I I think it's gonna end up being a tempest in a teapot. They wanted to gain political legs, they want to do as much negative as they can with it. I think it's not gonna have I you know, most people just aren't gonna get bent out of shape over what the media's hyping up right now. And we've seen that over the last year, it it's been a lot of again, crying wolf when there is nothing there. So I imagine it'll go away. It'll be a good story for them to write for for a long time. They'll be able to get people to criticize. It's just not gonna change the the public's mind, in my opinion. 

Tim Barton [00:20:50] Well, and Dad, as we pointed out, that this is something that largely is a distraction that is being blown out of proportion. It's not quite fabricated, because there's something really happening, but the Democrats need a distraction from the shutdown because during the shutdown, President Trump's approval has gone up, Democrats' approval has gone down, and really in general this year, Democrats' approval ratings have been going down. And as you're looking at the shutdown and and people aren't bringing blaming President Trump for this, well, then who are we going to blame? And it's it's worth noting that some of some of the the consequences is what repercussions, maybe I'm trying to think of the right word. The the things the the impact of the shutdown, maybe that's the way to say it. The impact of the shutdown has not been fully felt by a lot of people. But as you're coming up on a place when now maybe some of these welfare checks really, like starting in November, some of these welfare checks, some of these checks that that for some people, right? If if they're an elderly person and they're relying on some of this government assistance, there are people that are going to start feeling this in some pretty significant ways. One of the things that that also we know is the military is only funded two years at a time. It's with the National Defense Authorization Act. And one of the things that unfortunately happens so often in Congress is instead of having clean spending bills where we're voting on independent things, approving funding for those specific projects. So if we said, hey, here's the military, here's the funding for it, here's what it looks like. So we have more or less a clean budget, so we're not confused on where we're spending money. Well, a lot of politicians don't like that. They like to be able to have the the largest spending bill you can imagine because it's easier for them to hide things in there, and maybe it's in discretionary spending, maybe it's in titles and terms and labels that most of us American people don't really understand what we are funding, which is part of what happened with the USAID and some of the fraud that happened when early on Elon Musk came in and and and doge, and they're going through some of this. Well, that this is what a lot of politicians unfortunately like is they like to muddy the waters because it lets them do some of the funding. Well, the the Republicans have been arguing for it's not the cleanest, but it is a far cleaner. Spending bill, but it would include the military. And again, this matters because the military is only funded two years at a time. And that was going back to the founding era, because the founding fathers didn't want a standing army because that's part of what happened under Great Britain. When the king said we are gonna keep an army over in the colonies and it's for your good. And by the way, you're gonna pay for them, and they might stay in your house and they might take and use your goods and supplies, and and they're just gonna be there, they're just gonna live there. And this is where many colonists said, This is crazy. We have a standing army just chilling in our colonies. We don't need them. What are we doing? It's a drain on our economy, our finances, our family. And so they said no standing army. Again, it's why the army has to be funded every two years. But with this NDAA running out, one of the amazing things that has happened is when the military was going, in essence, to not have a paycheck, there's a private donor that stepped in and gave a hundred and thirty million dollars to make sure the military would get paychecks. That's pretty remarkable. 

David Barton [00:24:22] One of the things to understand about a shutdown is that when a shutdown occurs, the government by statutory authority has the right to reprioritize its spending. So there are things that are going to not be shut down. They're they're gonna keep operating. And what happens is the what they consider the least important thing start falling off. Now, this is if you actually started cutting the budget and got back to a balanced budget, this is a stuff that we would want to see probably go away anyway, by and large, because it's it's the lowest priority. But military is gonna get funded, defense is gonna get funded somewhere or the other. They're gonna move money around, people are gonna give to it. And one of the fun things that that I I watched this whole thing is this is now the second longest shutdown in American history. Nearly a month long. And you know, when the Republicans are blamed with the shutdown, about five seconds after it happens, the media starts talking about how many people have died as a result of the shutdown. You know, that's the kind of news that the coverage they give. Here we are nearly a month into this thing, coming four weeks, and you still have the left media to even acknowledge that there is a shutdown and it's having no impact. And I, you know, of course, the Bible says very clearly where your your treasurers, there's your heart also. And so you can tell what's important to people by what they put money on. And the Democrats right now are really are willing to shut down the government, willing to defund the government in order to keep abortion going and in order to keep funding illegal aliens. Isn't it interesting that that's more important to them than funding the military, than funding federal workers, than funding other other programs, is those two things we can't let be defunded. We gotta pay for abortions and we've got to keep funding illegal aliens, and we'll shut down the rest of the government to make sure that happens. Tells you a lot about priorities and how far out of step they are. And no wonder the media doesn't want to cover it. 

Tim Barton [00:26:12] Yeah, Dad, I I think both of those are really important. That there's no doubt we can see a lot of where the Democrats' priorities are. And certainly I I think you nailed it with that immigration thought, especially where their concern is. Now, I I really was hoping to get into the Venezuela thought where President Trump said we're not gonna declare war. We don't need Congress to do that. We're just gonna kill people the smuggle drugs in. I I would love to talk about that later, but that's gonna have to be maybe tomorrow's program, maybe later this week, and hopefully Rick Green will be back with us as well. But for now, that's it. We're wrapping it up. Thank you for listening to the WallBuilder Show.