Ronald Reagan's daughter rips 'heartbreaking' teardown of White House's East Wing

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Independent

Friday 24 October 2025 15:08 EDT


Former President Ronald Reagan’s daughter has slammed President Donald Trump’s “heartbreaking” demolition of the White House’s East Wing.

Patti Davis, 73, mourned the East Wing in a New York Times opinion essay published Friday. Photos circulated online this week showing the extensive building work, which is being carried out to make room for Trump’s long-awaited $300 million ballroom. The East Wing stood for more than 100 years before it was destroyed this week.

“The images we’ve now all seen of the East Wing being demolished are heartbreaking,” Davis wrote. “Over the centuries, many presidents have altered the White House, and certainly older buildings need to be updated and repaired. But this is complete destruction.”

Davis said the East Wing “was not just a building made of brick and plaster; it was the people’s house, a building suffused with the spirit of the ideals that built it.” The building “invited you to look beyond your own life,” she argued. “Now no one else will get to walk across that threshold and feel the richness of that history brush past them,” Davis wrote. “It was where Eleanor Roosevelt walked. It was where Jacqueline Kennedy planned the Rose Garden.”

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-patti-davis-east-wing-demolished-b2851857.html

[twodogsbarking]

1. The offspring of Presidents is an interesting subject. Going back to Caroline, my fav.

[twodogsbarking]

2. Reagan was so annoying. He had the moves like Nixon. But the good thing is they are both ded.

[elleng]

3. Here it is:

When My Family Lived in the White House I Resented It. Now I Mourn It.
by Patti Davis

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016416137

[wolfie001]

5. Yawn

Reagan started the downfall of the Middle Class. He was abysmal.

[PatSeg]

6. Patti Davis wasn't a huge fan of her father

as president and disagreed with him politically in pretty much every regard. Along with her brother Ron, she was very liberal. Over time she was reconciled with her parents, but she didn't support him when he was in the White House.

[elleng]

7. So you're YAWNING?

[popsdenver]

9. Not unlike WBush and Trump

Reagan was just a pawn, a front man, a figure head, show piece.

HWBush and his CABAL ran things for 12 years, then came WBush.......Cheney/Rumsfeld ran everything for 8 years.
Now Steven Miller and the 2025 CABAL of "New" Republicans are running everything, and allowing Trump's atrocities as a Media Diversion from what they are doing in the shadows, just like HW and Cheney/Rumsfeld.....

Trump's situation is complex, he has to mind his THREE masters, all at the same time: His Greed......2025......Putin

[markodochartaigh]

11. Trump also has to satisfy his

techbro overlords and the religious crowds too. Trump is just what all of these groups need...a kkklownish buffoon to distract the world while they roll out their nefarious ploys.

[NH Ethylene]

14. He was abysmal. But that's not really relevant here.

Appreciating Ms Davis's perspective on the East Wing is hardly endorsing her father and his misdeeds.

[wolfie001]

17. I've always asked here at DU why Bob Dylan never speaks out about orange shitler

Joan Baez speaks out. Mia Farrow speaks out. BD is silent. It frustrates me because we are AT WAR with a maniac in the WH. Architectural aesthetic debates when actual people are suffering. We can redo the WH, but we can't replace all the people that the fat orange imbecile is killing and will kill in the future. That's all I'm saying.

[slightlv]

21. You're right, Wolf... we SHOULD be more up in arms at what's

being done to actual, living, breathing individuals. But that's not the way the people of this country react to anything. It has to hit the in the gut. The pictures that have come out of the demolition of part of OUR White House has hit people in the gut. So much so, that trump forbid pictures being taken or the workers from talking to anyone.

I chalk it up to the materialistic path the republicans and the rich have had us on for decades. Even those of us who don't count ourselves as materialistic would seem that way to others in the world. And at this point, I don't care WHAT it takes... material or human or animal, just get the Devil out of the White House by any means necessary.

[wolfie001]

23. I posted a pic in General Discussion right after the demolition started

tRUMP's a nazi pig. Thanks for agreeing with my post. He's repulsive and appalling! Cheers

[wolfie001]

4. That POS ripped off the solar panels JC had installed

Glad she's "disappointed" but what about the people the fat orange imbecile is snatching off the streets and killing in the Caribbean??

[Gore1FL]

8. That wasn't part of her essay about the destruction of the White House.

She didn't mention healthcare subsidies, the Iraq war, or Elon Musk, either.

Patti Davis and her father are very different people. I am not understanding your hostility to her.

[Oeditpus Rex]

10. Don't bother trying to understand it

There's enough hostility at DU to go halfway around Earth. Chelsea Clinton caught some for not using strong enough words on this subject.


Expressing anger at just about anything is a big reason political forums exist. Some of it makes sense. Some of it doesn't.

[wolfie001]

13. I'd like to see her attack tRUMP because he's an evil person

The destruction of the WH isn't even in a top ten list of worst things he's done.

[Gore1FL]

15. But it's part of the worst things that he has done that she has direct experience with.

Maybe we should be grateful that people are on our side.

[wolfie001]

18. Does she vote Democratic up and down the ballot?

Please let me know. Save me some Google time. I know many rich here in Maryland that put on a Progressive front and then it comes up later that they hated Obama or Dems in general. I used to work in the richest part of Maryland (Potomac), and I saw these wealthy masked freaks every day for almost 30 years.

[Gore1FL]

20. Ballots are secret in the United States.

Patti Davis outwardly espouses similar liberal viewpoints as her brother Ron. I suspect most if not all of her ballots would be for Democrats. But never fear; I am sure there ballot initiatives for you to take issue with.

Your posts seem like misdirected/undirected anger that are simply designed to be critical for the sake of being critical. The destruction of the East Wing of the White House upsets a lot of us. It seems senseless and otherwise not useful to lash out at people with whom you agree.

[wolfie001]

22. We can redo the WH when the Dems get back in but the lives lost to tRUMP can't come back

I hope she's a Dem. That's all I'll say on this whole shebang.

[area51]

12. "long-awaited"?

I can't see anyone other than #PEDOnald caring.

[progree]

16. 1987: RR: "Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall" # 2025: Putin: "Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump

Tear down this house"

[yardwork]

19. Her statement is MUCH better than Chelsea Clinton's.

This is how it's done. Watch and learn, Democrats.