The ballroom replacing the White House East Wing will share Donald Trump’s name.

The $300 million project has yet to receive a formal designation, but it is already being referred to as the “President Donald J. Trump Ballroom,” a moniker that will likely stick, senior administration officials told ABC News Friday.

Practically every detail that has emerged about the ballroom—and the East Wing’s complete destruction this week—has been uncovered by media outlets that refused to take the administration’s plan at face value.

After promising Americans in July that his ballroom proposal would “be near but not touching” the historic building, Trump plowed ahead without prerequisite approval from the National Capital Planning Commission (which has been closed since the government shutdown began earlier this month) and without the express permission of Congress.

The project’s price tag also inexplicably grew by 50 percent over the last week. What Trump had pitched as a $200 million project was instead referred to this week as a $300 million development plan that the White House suggested would be funded, in part, by some of the country’s wealthiest families and biggest corporations, including the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.

Government officials are still trying to ascertain whether Trump’s sudden, unauthorized decision to demolish the White House was legal, but at least two Americans have already opted to sue him over it in an attempt to suspend the construction.

The White House’s partial destruction is, ultimately, another illustration that the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances has eroded. The international real estate mogul’s desire to destroy the government—and with it, the architectural face of American democracy—has received practically zero pushback from his allies in Congress, who appear all too willing to sit back as Trump courts billionaires to fund his golden banquet hall.

Resisting Trump’s drafts for the East Wing would require someone in power to actually hold the president accountable. But his desire to destroy and redevelop the White House as he sees fit should come as no surprise, since he’s never appeared to be a fan of the national symbol. During his first term, Trump reportedly called the White House “a dump” (an allegation that he has publicly refuted), and he has spent no small part of his second term living and dining at his own properties rather than the executive mansion.

An anonymous ally of Donald Trump is donating $130 million to pay members of the military during the government shutdown.

The Department of Defense confirmed Friday that “the donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” spokesperson Sean Parnell told CNN. Trump had announced the donation the day before.

The move is unprecedented, as the military has always been funded by American taxpayers. According to CNN, the White House referred questions about the donor’s identity and possible ties to foreign interests to the Defense Department, which then referred questions back to the president. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress told the news outlet that they were out of the loop.

It’s the latest example of the Trump administration touting an influx of private cash. Trump has bragged that his White House ballroom is being funded entirely with private donations, but seems unconcerned about the appearance of bribery or corruption. The fact that this donation, ostensibly to military personnel, is coming from an anonymous donor also raises the question of legality, as it could come from a foreign entity or government looking to curry favor with Trump or his business interests.

The Trump Organization, which the president claims is being run by his children during his presidency, has expanded its business interests dramatically in the past year. One foreign leader, the president of Indonesia, was caught asking the president to speak with his son about a deal earlier this month.

Is this donation to the military coming with strings attached for government policy? Or is it benefiting the president’s personal interests in some way? Thanks to a lack of transparency, no one outside of the president’s inner circle has a clue.

Canada seems to be caving to President Trump, pulling a TV ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan’s criticism of tariffs. The ad originally began airing in Ontario last week, thanks to Doug Ford, the province’s conservative premier.

The ad featured a clip of Reagan’s 1987 radio address in which the conservative icon argued that tariffs undermine economic prosperity and that they only serve to “hurt every American.”

The one-minute ad cuts portions of Reagan’s five-minute speech so that Reagan is saying several sentences in succession that were actually separate during the original address. As edited, Reagan says:

When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign........

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