As GOP points fingers over stunning midterm losses, Trump admires his ballroom

In the midst of the GOP reckoning with massive losses in the midterms, President Donald Trump on Wednesday hastily called the press in to cover his first public remarks from the White House since the Democrats overwhelmingly wrestled control of both the House and Senate.

But for 20 minutes, the president didn't address the history-making renouncement of his administration that voters delivered Tuesday night. Instead, the president, standing in the construction site of the White House ballroom in front of a large beam, spoke to a crowd of construction workers about his many passion projects to "beautify Washington" — first and foremost, the massive ballroom befit with 50-foot ceilings and the capacity to hold hundreds of guests.

"This will be the ballroom. Right here is the ballroom. Over here, you're going to have magnificent columns on this side, outside exterior columns, very much like the Supreme Court. They're actually taller and they're even more magnificent," Trump said.

An almost sanguine sounding Trump ticked through a progress report of the various construction projects underway as he looks to remake Washington in his image. It was a sharp contrast from Republicans nationwide — Trump's defeated 2024 primary foe Ron DeSantis' first public remarks called the midterms an " extinction-level event for Republicans " — who are grasping for lessons learned and a way forward after a Tuesday night beatdown.

"I love construction," the president said, before turning around and putting his signature on the last of the ballroom's beams, in thick black sharpie.

As political strategists delivered their autopsies of the midterm results in lengthy X posts and GOP finger-pointing unfolded with fervor, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the president's right-hand-man on construction projects around the city, stood before the crowd and declared Wednesday "a day of celebration" and "a day of gratitude."

"This is the last beam that's going into place," Burgum said. "It's going to be raised up, and that's what we're here to celebrate."

Trump made clear that the decision to focus on the construction project on Wednesday was his idea.

"I thought the press should be here. This was a non-press event," Trump said, amid some amicable small talk in front of a group of photographers. "I said 'this is the greatest, right?'"

Wednesday's site tour — accompanied by handshakes and signing hardhats for construction workers — was a world away from the last time he faced a midterm drubbing in 2018. That time, he called an angry press conference berating Republicans and blaming them for their losses.

"Mia Love gave me no love. And she lost. Too bad," Trump said eight years ago, referencing the then-battleground Utah Republican.

Wednesday's event echoed the president's last public remarks before the midterms, when he closed the cycle with a speech before the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, an embattled project to repaint the shallow water feature in front of the monument to Abraham Lincoln.

The midterms only came up after the president delivered remarks, at the prompting of the press.

After taking a few questions about Speaker Mike Johnson stepping down from his post after Tuesday's losses, and Vice President JD Vance's assertion that his party lost so handily because of the war in Iran that the president championed, Trump calmly directed the attention back to the ballroom.

"Now watch the beam go up," he said, as the hunk of metal carrying his signature was hoisted into its place in the ceiling.

"Now envision chandeliers all over your ceiling. Envision marble floor. Oh, it's going to be beautiful. This will be the most beautiful building," the president said.