Trump to build a ballroom for the White House (08-01-2025--Hour3)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive. Content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to vpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, rite to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Alrighty, So, construction is set to begin next month in September, on a new ballroom inside the White House, according to Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. This was announced yesterday. The two hundred million dollar ballroom will be built adjacent to the White House where the East Wing sits. Levitt said. The East Wing will be modernized, with offices in that area relocated during construction. The cost of the project will be covered by President Trump and other donors, a two hundred million dollar project that he is paying for himself and is donating to future presidents and the American people. Basically, and so the first thing I thought was what are you going to name it? Because you know the ballrooms you go to hotels there's a ballroom there, and they always have names for the ballrooms, right, so what are they going to name it? And I suggested, well, I thought my first thought was obviously the Potent Ballroom. Obviously, No, he's going to put his own name on it. You know, he's going to put his own name on it in a big gold plaque or something. It's and if you're paying for it, what's the legitimate argument against him naming it after himself? Why wouldn't he the Trump Ballroom? Now, I don't know if there's some sort of agreement that would you know, you've got to put it in writing that you can never change the name, because as soon as a Democrat gets in there, they're gonna, you know, rename the thing. The White House State Ballroom will be ninety thousand square feet, so a little bit smaller than my home. It will have a seated capacity of six hundred and fifty people. It would eliminate the need for the large, unsightly tents that they usually have to pitch on the grounds. Whenever they do large state dinners or other big events, they have to put up these massive tents. And so you build a banquet hall so you can host all of the large events there and then you don't have to be putting up tents taking them down. I mean, that's kind of. I mean, I'm not saying you can't ever do a large tent on the lawn if it's a nice day or something, you know, if that's the kind of vibe you're going for. But yeah, I mean, you're doing a state dinner and now you like you're gonna do it in the middle of winter time or something, and you got to bring in space heaters and all that, and I gotta think it's gonna save money in the long run, right, rather than having to pay you know, the staff to constantly put the tent up. Is that a rental? I don't think. I think at this point you should own the tent. And it's probably a very fancy tent. Probably looks like a building on the inside, you know, it doesn't look like the tent that you probably have been to at like a graduation ceremony or something like that. But the idea is to have it completed before the end of Trump's term. In January twenty twenty nine, and this was interesting. This is from the Hill. Obama White House officials confirmed in twenty sixteen that Donald Trump had offered to build a ballroom. At that time, it was one hundred million dollar ballroom. Now it's going to be a two hundred million project. But Trump offered to build a one hundred million dollar ballroom in the building. But they said they did not seriously consider the proposal. Well, why not, Like it would have been good. I think it would have been good to you know, have said yes to that. That would have been I don't know. It may have been good for the country in twenty sixteen to have some sort of a you know, agreement like that between Obama and Putin's proxy. Right Anyway, now, I know the Democrats don't want to hear any more about the Russia collusion hoax. They want to talk about the Epstein case. And I do have something on yeah, update on the Epstein two pieces actually on the whole Epstein saga. In North Carolina. Apparently the state Senate Democrats have a lot of pull with the Trump administration. I was not aware of this until this press release went out from the State Senate Minority Leader Sidney betch Her office sent out the following This was. Two days ago on Tuesday. Members of the North Carolina Senate Democrat Democratic Caucus, under the leadership of me Senate Democratic Leader Sidney Batch, sent a formal letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi and North Carolina's congressional delegation demanding the immediate release of redacted records related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. That'll do it, That will do it. Like up until now they were like, we're not doing this. No, we got to Trump, right, that's what Democrats believe. But now now this will do it. Otherwise what is the point of this, right, I mean, unless you've got some sort of pull with Pambondi, why else would you take this sort of an action except you were, I don't know, Like that would mean you're just trying to make headlines and use this Epstein story line to try to damage the president and try to make them squirm and just posture for your voters or something. And I don't want to. Accuse anybody of doing that because that would be kind of slimy, you know. The letter, addressed to Attorney General Bondi and the state's congressional delegation, calls for the immediate unsealing of files naming perpetrators and enablers in Epstein's human trafficking network while protecting the identities of survivors. While sixteen Senate Democrats signed the letter, not a single Republican joined them. Senate Democrats are now publicly calling on their GOP colleagues to explain why there once again letting Donald Trump and the Mega Movement call the shots instead of their constituents. All right, take it back. Yeah, this is definitely just slimy posturing. David, Welcome to the program. Hello David, Hello, Hello, Hello. Just just a comment about the ballroom. Yeah, in my opinion, he would probably not name it after himself, but after after the country. I'm thinking he would say the American Ballroom. He well, I mean he could the American Ballroom. He could call it that, or if not that, then he could say the name one it should be. So there. You're welcome, your welcome ballroom. There you go, David. I appreciate the cam in. Have a great weekend, you too, all right, take care? Yeah, like you got to name it something. I mean, maybe maybe they just call it the State Ballroom or the White House Ballroom. I guess they could go with something like that too. I don't know. Here's the other update in the Epstein story. Imprisoned sex trafficker Gilain Maxwell is demanding full immunity in exchange for congressional testimony about her activities with her longtime partner, deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, as furer continues over the Trump administration's handling of the federal government's files on Epstein. By the way, is she still alive? They haven't whacked her yet? Yeah. I find that a little odd because she would know everything Epstein knew or a lot of it, right, but nobody, nobody suicided her, So I don't know what to make of that. Maxwell's attorneys laid out their demands in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer after the Congressional panel subpoened her. The disgraced socialite is requesting full immunity along with an advanced copy of the commit these questions. She does not want to hold the hearing in the Federal Correctional facility where she is serving her sentence because of the possibility of leaks, her lawyer said. The Oversight Committee will respond to ms Maxwell's attorney soon, spokeswoman said, but it will not consider granting immunity for her testimony, So we'll see where that goes. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago, and more recently chose to work with the as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground news as they make the media landscape more transparent. Over on the text line driven by Liberty Buick GMC, we have some ideas for the. Naming of the new ballroom. Um let me see here the big ballroom. That's from Bob. How about huge y uge, the huge ballroom. I don't know who this. Is from, but they say Elaine Maxwell got transferred to a lower security prison in Texas today. Oh all right from Chicago. Number. Once everything comes out about Epstein and Democrats are heavily named, what does the media push next as a diversion. Yeah, I mean that's the thing too. Like I've given my thoughts on my theory, I should say of what exactly Epstein was. I think he was a con man, and I think he was a cutout. I think he was a financier. Basically, he would he would move money for off book intel operations or business deals too. I guess I think that was really what he was about, aside from the like that's why all of these people would were in his orbit and he was able to move with all of these rich and powerful people. Now, was there some. Sort of a extortion operation connected to the human trafficking stuff? I mean that's possible, entirely possible, probable even And the problem though that you're going to run into is that you've got a lot of people that may have had completely innocuous dealings with him, and you've got intelligence services and off book operators that now get named two and they are not going to be happy about that. It could actually jeopardize international relations if a nation finds out that we funded some off book op that they opposed or in their country something like that. Right, So that's that could be problematic. But yeah, like figuring out who all of the clients were, that's important and that should that should be really the people need to those people need to be you know, arrested and charged. I don't see how you can run the thing that Gleane Maxwell ran and was convicted for running and not have any clients. It doesn't make any sense. How do you how do you run a prostitution ring and not have any prostitutes? How do you run an extortion ring and not have any victims? Like so anyway, So that's yeah, my thoughts on. That big beautiful ballroom, the big beautiful ballroom that could be it Trump ballroom at Freedom Hall, The freedom ballroom. He could call it that, Yeah, freedom Hall. I mean he's gonna he's like, he's he's got all the room to run on this, Like he's going to be able to name it whatever he wants. And he does have a way of of naming things. I mean, he also has a way of naming things after himself a lot. But he also has a way of like attaching names to people for example. So you know, we'll see, we'll see how it goes. Just don't don't make it like a crowdsource thing, Like, don't open it up for suggestions from the public because you're just gonna and then like if you want to do that, that's fine, but don't be bound by whatever gets like the top votes. Don't do that because if you do that, you're gonna end up with like ballroom Mike ballroom face, and you don't want that. I don't want that, all right. North Carolina lawmakers overrode Governor Josh Stein's veto of House Pill eightoh five this week. It seeks to prevent the sexual exploitation of women and minors. It was overridden with the help of NASIFH. Majid, who is a Democrat from Charlotte, he broke with his party. He was the decisive vote to override the veto, and when asked about his vote after the session, Magid told reporters quote, I had some moral issues and I had to lean on my values. And good for him, right if that's where If that's what he thought was the right way to vote, and he vot he voted his conscience, his values, then more power to him. And I don't have to agree with his vote in this case. I do, but if that's what is motivating you to do something, then that's fine. Both the State House and the State Senate voted to override Stein's veto of the Republican sponsored legislation that would officially recognize two sexes in all administrative rules, regulations, or public policies adopted by the state. It'll also prohibit state funding from going towards trans procedures, and it will require schools to adopt policies enabling parents and students to opt out of curriculum based on religious grounds. According to the North Carolina Family Policy Council, the law will also extend the statute of limitations to ten years for a malpractice action arising out of any injury associated with a gender transition procedure. This is a piece by Abigail Nichols at the Federalist dot com. The legislation that requires state records to include oh sorry, the legislation will also require that state records would have to now include the original birth certificate and any amended birth certificate if you get a sex change, if you go the other way and you get yourself a new birth certificate from another state and then you move here, you have to provide both of them to the state. Restricting online entities and users from publishing Another provision of this, which was the original intent of the bility, then got broadened with those provisions that have just ran through. It restricts online entities and users from publishing porn images without the consent of those depicted, or without verification that those depicted were at least eighteen years old when the content was created, So you've got to have to ensure that there's no child victims in these things. It also lays out requirements for online entities regarding the removal of pornographic content upon request, which like, yeah, people have these videos like you know, stolen from them, or like an ex boyfriend like revenge porn kind of thing, and then they upload them onto websites and then the websites apparently. I was listening to a podcast about this few months back. Jordan Harbin Journey was talking about this the system where like these sites like the users post the videos and then the users can download them and then re upload them, and so there's this huge like it's like a churning model. So once something goes in, trying to get that thing out is virtually impossible unless you dedicate people to flagging videos and banning specific videos. So that's part of this law also that all of these online porn sites to have a process to remove them when requested. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. 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Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight, three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer a cabins offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Guys, I can't look if you're gonna make suggestions, right, if you're going to make suggestions on what they will call the new ballroom at the White House that Trump is building, it has to be it's got to be clean enough for radio. Okay, I'm not going to read these things that you're sending in. I understand the word ballroom has the word ball in it. I get the double entendres, I get all the jokes. Yes, I'm being inundated with all the same with basically the same joke. Okay, so I appreciate it. But if you want me to read them, then you know, keep them, keep them clean. Oh, he could call it the Milania. That sounds elegant. You know, the Millennia ballroom. You call it the Millennia. And I was thinking too during the break. I thought maybe the huge ballroom. But I think it would actually be better as like the huge room, the huge or the huge hole, because you could say whole too, and then that gives you another letter to work with if you're trying to like do alliteration. Kind of a thing. So that's a good one. The big beautiful ballroom, that's a good one. Christina, to see, I can't read that one, can. Now. I'm not going to read that one either, Dana, you little troll. You let's see here. Oh, I gotta, I gotta to this. Sorry, I was getting distracted with all of the messages. This is from Paige Maston. She is the opinion editor and writer for McClatchy and the Charlotte Observer, and she wrote a virtually identical piece, albeit longer, the same piece as the state Senator Caleb Tedros, who I had on yesterday to ask him about the premise of his piece, which was that they're very upset at Carla Cunningham, Democrat from Charlotte, for voting for the immigration enforcement bill and to override the governor's veto. She decided that because and she made the floor speech and she made comments about illegal immigration and dissimilation, and she said in that speech, all cultures are not equal, and that was what ted Rose said. I want to be clear that kind of thinking has no place in Carolina, which would indicate that he believes all cultures are equal. But when I asked him about that, he said, I'm ignoring the context of the situation or something. And I would ask the same of Paige Maston. But she actually lays out an argument that seems to be that she thinks all cultures are equal. She says, to say that some cultures are not equal to others is dangerous and divisive, which is also exactly what Tedros wrote, he said, it's not just divisive, it's dangerous. I'm not sure who copied off of who here? But which cultures exactly are the good ones? She asks? And should we just close our borders to the others? I would submit yes. If there is a culture that, let's say, prioritizes the murder of Jews above their own lives and the lives of their children, I would not want any of those people from that culture to come in. Yes, I can give you that example. And should we just close our borders? It suggests to people that their neighbors might be a threat because they come from a culture that is supposedly inferior. No, it doesn't do that, but this is the narrative that they are seeking to promulgate, this idea that anybody worried about what Carla Cunningham was talking about, which was the failure and refusal of some immigrant populations to assimilate into the culture. Right, that's what she said, That's what she talked about. And that is a point so that Tedros did not address and refuse to when I raised it with him, and on yesterdays show was the first hour of yesterday's show, and she doesn't really address this either, she says. Worst of all, oh, she says, it treats our differences as a liability rather than an asset. And worse of all, it seems to betray a most sacred American ideal that every human being is created equal and should be treated as such, no matter where they come from. But they are equal under the law, our law. That's our cultural norm. See is this is this Western conceit that somehow or another, all people are just like us. They all have the same belief system as us, and so if we think something is good, then they must think. It's good too. But they do not. Other cultures do not. Now, some people in those cultures might, But there are cultures like, for example, honor killings. Right we reject these. If your daughter is the victim of a sexual assault, you don't kill her, you kill the attacker, right like that. That's a cultural thing. It really is amazing. They are going to run Carla Coneham right out of the Democrat Party. It seems like it's already building. So I don't know, maybe she's not running for reelection again or what, but I appreciate the fact that she's willing to, you know, to stand up and to vote the way her conscience dictated good for her. All right, Brett Winnable is going to be joining me for pregaming in a moment. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come. Who you are, visit Creative video dot Com. It is Friday and it's a quarter till and that means it's time for pregaming with Brett Winterble. Hello Brett, good morning, good afternoon. Good afternoon, and good evening, Good evening. Brett is on three to six here on WBT. So I talked about the White House ballroom project, and we're thinking you got to name the ballroom. Yes, so we've been kicking around some names here, so let me get Stan on here. Stan has an idea for the ballroom. Go ahead, Stan, welcome. Hey, this is Bane. Am I on? Oh? Bane? Okay? Bane? Yeah? Hey, we need to give it open to corporate sponsorship. So it could be like the Home Depot ballroom. Selling sell the naming rights to the White House Ballroom. That's an idea, that is all right? Yeah I like it. Hey. I got one more thing. My dad always had an idea for advertising to to raise money for the government. Is sell advertising on money? Nice? Oh yeah? Or no? Because you know, like the advertising on the back of like your grocery receipt. Nobody ever uses nobody ever looks at those lowis ROI but nobody carries the cash anymore except drug dealers. Yeah, that's all right, Ben, have a great weekend, buddy. I appreciate it. The Swinging Ballroom, Wow, the Maga b the Magabee Mega Ballroom. Yeah, I'm warming up to my own idea, which was the Huge Room, the Huge room. Y uge, the Huge Room. I like that. That's possibility, any ideas. Uh, the Milania was that's that sounds elegant. The Milani the. Malani Milannia Ballroom. Yeah, yeah, I would. I would probably just say the Redskins borroom. Goodness, you can't say that. He's he says doing that. He's talking about it, I know, but heatedly. But he he allowed us to say Mary Christmas again. I don't think you get multiple bites at that apple. You can't make us say the team the old team names again. I think, really, I think there's a certain amount of political capital expended. Well in that category. But I mean, but he was talking about it, you know, as as. Recent as I did. Hear that, But I don't know if he can make that happen. That's true. The Wrecking Ballroom. How about the Brennan Ballroom. The Brennan Ballroom, I like it. I like it. It's trolling. I my initial the very first thing I thought, the putin room. Wow, very good. That's yeah, that's a pretty good one hoot. And ball room yeah for sure, yeah, you know. And he said he's gonna pay for it. He yeah, and It'llion didn't say he's gonna pay like two hundred million and. The donors and donors to the project, which and then at the bottom of the story it said something like he had offered this to Obama. It was only one hundred million dollars, right, because you know, but I guess inflation, sure now it's two hundred million. But they turned him down because they didn't think it was a serious proposal. How long is it going to take for them to build it? They want it done by January twenty twenty nine, because that's when he's out of office unless he goes full orange dictator. I would like to see him do it, like for the for twenty twenty six, Like let's do it for the twenty twenty six, for the for the you know, the bisentennial thing, right, two hundred fifty two and fifty Yeah, and have John Jones and those guys fight in that ballroom to Christen it. An MMA fight. Yes, he open the ball room. That's what that's that's what they're planning on doing right now. Anyways, they are John Jones and a whole bunch of people are going to be fighting. That's really true. I'm not I'm not. But they're going to do it on the lawn. They're going to do I didn't think you meant at the White House. You're having an m m A fight at the White House on July fourth. Well, they want to try to do it as part of the party, yes, as. The as the whole thing, and and you know, you know, shirts and skins. I don't think. I don't there's a large population that does not watch m m A. That I suspect the PPV will be un believable. I think it's going I think it, and that would. I think it's gonna upset a lot of people. Hell and to cell, you know, I mean all that sort of stuff that they used to do back in the day, back in the day. Yeah, I don't know. It's like we I'm moved past the let's watch people pummel each other for sport. As I'm saying that that's not true because there's a whole TikTok channel devoted to that very thing. So the President's fixed your thing. He's got the new way you got to do the push ups and the setups and all that. He's we're building in. Our residential fitness. Well, yeah, we're building an army of strength. Oh, I would hope all armies would do that. Actually we don't. We have an army of strength already. I don't need. I don't know who this is. Oh, okay, you guys are tools old news. Well thank you. Why we are tools? We are so we are helpful and we get stuff done. We allow other people to succeed in whatever project they're working on. So I appreciate that troller. Thank you. Iron sharpens iron. It's right, resistance to pressure build strength. We have a show, you don't true. We have two shows between us. Absolutely, yes, you actually do more. You just like flit around and just drop in on random people's shows all around the country and just take over their shows. Here's one called The Franklin. The Franklin. I like the frank that's nice. Do they have a Franklin bedroom? I don't know. Oh, I've never been to the White House. You never even on a tour like to see the No, like. We drove past it once. Wow, yeah, you should go. That's what I've been told. In fact, when I when Mark Meadows was Trump's chief of staff. Yes, he invited me to come up and whoa, you should have. I should have and I didn't. I just never got around to doing it. But I'm always kind of I'm always kind of like arm's length with like owing somebody in the political arena. You know, I don't want to ever think that like I owe them something. You wouldn't. He wouldn't. I don't think you'd owe them anything. I think I think he was probably just happy to maybe show you around. Have you met Mark Meadows? I have twenty sixteen in Cleveland. Now, Okay, Yeah, I'm not so sure he doesn't. Like he didn't return my calls anymore because. Like he's he's he's doing other things. Yeah he's Yeah, he's done other things. But I do know so like I've never been to Congress again into Congress itself. Wow. Now, I never went to the Statue of Liberty when I grew up in New York. Have you done it now? Since one year Christy and I went up there and we were like, let's go to the city and be tourists. And so we did go. We went to Ellis Island, but we did not go up the line was so long. We did not go up the into the Statue of Liberty, but we were we rode past it obviously on the on the boat. And that was our school would always the high school I went. To a long Island. We would always go into the city every year for the one of the trips or whatever, and we were never allowed. Our school got the rumor. The legend was that our school got banned from the Statue of Liberty. Whoa because the class that was before my brother's class, Yeah, he's older. Some a bunch of the high schoolers got drunk and oh my gosh, one of them like passed out or have alcohol poisoning at the Statue of Living and then they had to like fly a chopper in to airlift them out. And it was like, so that's the story. I don't know if that was true, but that's the legend. We told ourselves like that in the school. I mean, I don't like that, but it's that I'm sure there was a reason for it. Here's one How about the Anthony Scaramucci ballroom, but just name it that for about fifteen minutes and then change the name. Nice, just fantastic. That is that is the winners. I think that would be well, I mean because then you could name it something after that. I just said, they better not open it up for voting. Don't don't let oh, don't like let the people let us choose it. We are not considering what I'm reading on the text line and the body mcbothface fiasco like that's. Uh, I'm with you on that. Yeah, don't let us we will disappoint you. So all right, Well that's pregaming. There you go. I'm sticking around with Winterable. By the way, did you hear that the banana got eaten again? The art piece? Yeah, I'll say on Monday, y'all, don't break anything while I'm gone, Winnables next. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.