The White House covered the White House columns at the North Portico with large tarps on Thursday while repair work continued above the entrance. The tarps showed images of the columns underneath, and scaffolding had been in place for days before they went up in the late morning.
Doug Burgum told Katie Miller earlier this week that the North Portico columns were undergoing repairs and should be finished very quickly. Trump said earlier this week that workers had taken about 150 years of paint off of the columns and re-did them.
North Portico repair work
A White House official said the North Portico was undergoing standard restoration work to repair stones in the columns. That leaves the exterior covered while crews keep working on the structure itself, with the tarps serving as a visual shield during the job.
The setup is straightforward for visitors and onlookers: the North Portico remains visible, but the column work is hidden behind printed tarps and scaffolding. The repair work appears to be moving on the same pace Burgum described, though the White House has not given a completion date beyond his very quick timeline.
Trump’s construction drive
The North Portico work fits into several other construction projects Trump has launched in Washington, D.C. Construction crews began work on a previously unannounced helipad on the White House’s South Lawn last week, and contractor’s records obtained by The Washington Post show the White House sped up the $13 million project and added $875,000 in anticipation of an upcoming state visit.
Trump also began a White House ballroom project earlier this year with demolition of the East Wing. That project is reportedly expected to cost $600 million, with more than half of the cost coming from taxpayer money, according to The Washington Post.
Columns and competing claims
Trump told reporters earlier this week that the columns were in very bad shape and treated very badly by a lot of presidents. He said construction workers had taken about 150 years of paint off of the columns and re-did them, while the White House described the work as standard restoration.
That difference leaves the public with two descriptions of the same project: one focused on routine stone repair, the other on a broader overhaul of what Trump said had been neglected for decades. The visible result on Thursday was the same either way, with the North Portico wrapped in tarps as the work continued above the entrance.
