Jackie Kennedy’s White House Preservation group faces backlash for supporting Trump’s controversial East Wing renovation plan
A White House preservation organization founded by former First Lady Jackie Kennedy is under criticism for its response to President Donald Trump’s plan to demolish the East Wing and replace it with a massive ballroom.
The White House Historical Association, established to protect the building’s historic character, was aware of the project but did not publicly oppose it, leading to accusations that it abandoned its founding principles.
The group was created to protect the White House
Kennedy founded the White House Historical Association in 1961 to preserve the White House, maintain its status as “the People’s House,” and help future generations understand its history.
The organization’s mission is under scrutiny because its leadership maintained close ties with Trump while his administration pursued significant changes to the complex. The Washington Post reported that the association supported Trump’s renovations, despite decades of fundraising focused on preservation.
“Jackie Kennedy founded the organization because she thought the White House should be treated like a museum… The White House Historical Association’s complicity towards this administration’s actions is not in that spirit,” Rebecca Miller, the executive director of the DC Preservation League, told the Post.
Its defense of renovations drew criticism
In June 2025, after Trump announced plans for a ballroom, White House Historical Association CEO Stewart McLaurin published a LinkedIn essay titled “An Ever-Changing White House.” He argued that several past renovations, though initially controversial, eventually became “integral to the identity of the White House.”
However, Ed Lengel, who spent two years working as a historian for the association, said McLaurin failed to acknowledge an important distinction: previous alterations followed extensive consultations with Congress, architects, and historians.
According to Lengel, those discussions were intended to ensure that renovations remained “consistent with the founders’ vision of what the White House should be, and to ensure that these changes are an organic growth from past development.” He told the Post, “This is not the same thing.”
The East Wing demolition came into focus
The association said its leadership “first learned of the planned demolition to the East Wing when the White House issued a press release on July 31, 2025, announcing the Ballroom plans and citing the chosen location of the Ballroom as the location of the current East Wing.”
However, the announcement did not explicitly state that the existing structure would be demolished. That same day, Trump said the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
The proposed ballroom is expected to cover 90,000 square feet and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, making it significantly larger than the Executive Residence, which presidents and their families traditionally occupied.
The group documented the building instead of objecting
Instead of publicly opposing the project, the association commissioned a final set of photographs of the East Wing. Photography began about one week before demolition. On October 20, 2025, bulldozers began tearing down the East Wing, which was originally built in 1902 and renovated and enlarged in 1942.
Despite the criticism, a spokesperson for the organization told the Post, “The Association learned about the president’s plans to demolish the East Wing the same way that the public did.” They also maintained that the association remained nonpartisan and “aligned with the mission” Kennedy laid out.