Before Monday’s Police Week dinner, Melania Trump reportedly told her husband to act presidential and avoid foul language. He walked out to the Rose Garden, looked at the crowd of law enforcement leaders and called the White House a s**t house. The advisory had a shelf life of approximately 40 seconds.
“I was told by my wife, ‘You have to act presidential, so don’t use foul language,'” Trump told the room. “I won’t, therefore. Normally I would have said it was a s**t house. But I don’t want to say that.”
🚨 NOW: President Trump RIPS past presidents for letting the White House become a dilapidated “SH*T HOUSE” until he renovated it
“I was told by my wife ‘you have to act presidential, so don’t use foul language.’ I won’t. Therefore, normally I would have said it was a SH*T… pic.twitter.com/PxKHWQYKdl
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 12, 2026
The remark was part of a longer tour through Trump’s renovation grievances. He revealed Melania had also given him heat over the Rose Garden itself, telling the crowd: “I want to welcome you to the Rose Garden. This used to be grass. I took a little heat from my wife. She said, ‘Darling, what did you do with my grass?'”
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Melania, who oversaw the original Rose Garden renovation in 2020, apparently had notes on the follow-up version. Trump replaced the grass with stone, a decision he paid for himself, a fact he mentioned more than once.
The renovation speech hit its familiar peaks. “The columns were falling down, the plaster was falling off… You made a speech, and they would say, ‘Couldn’t you fix up the paint job up there?'” he said. “This place is tippy-top now, including all of the brand new beautiful stone, I paid for it myself, all of the stone, all of the different things we have.”
The marble statues of Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin also received a mention. The Hamilton statue was briefly mistaken for Thomas Jefferson when it was unveiled in March, a detail Trump did not revisit.
From there it was a short walk to the ballroom, which it always is. “We’re building a ballroom in the back, which will be, I think, the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world,” Trump said. “It’ll also be very safe, it’s got glass this thick. It’s at the highest level of safety, and you won’t have a situation like you had two weeks ago on Saturday night.”
The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has since become the administration’s primary justification for the $400 million project, which has nearly doubled from its original $200 million estimate.
The renovation ambitions extend well beyond the ballroom. Trump has added a Presidential Walk of Fame to the West Wing Colonnade, gilded the Oval Office, added his name to the Kennedy Center and the Institute for Peace, and announced a 250-foot Triumphal Arch for Memorial Circle near Arlington National Cemetery. Survey work for the arch began Monday.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
