The demolition of the East Wing at the White House to make way for President Trump's vision of a splashy, massive ballroom, is triggering an enormous outcry from critics — but for many who have experienced glitzy state dinners firsthand, it's eliciting mixed feelings.

Trump, who originally said the ballroom would be near but “not touching” the existing building, revealed Wednesday that the entire East Wing was being demolished following conversations with architects.

“In order to do it properly we had to take down the existing structure,” Trump, flanked by renderings of the ballroom, told reporters in the Oval Office.

The $300 million project, originally announced in July and estimated at that time to cost $200 million, will create a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that Trump has said will be funded through private donations and serve as a “beautiful” space to host world leaders.

Critics have lambasted Trump’s changes to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“The East Wing of the White House is being demolished so that Donald Trump can construct a ballroom where he will be celebrated like a king,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said this past week.

“They’re going to spend $200-effing million to build a large, fancy White House ballroom,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said shortly after the ballroom plans were unveiled in July.

“It keeps getting worse,” Schumer said.

But some past state dinner attendees and journalists who have covered black-tie events at the White House say there are some practical purposes behind the controversial project.

“If you’ve ever been, you know that there’s very limited space in either the State Dining Room or the East Room," said Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary in Trump’s first term.

“You’re talking about 200 people that can fit into the East Room,” Spicer said.

“It’s very limiting in terms of what you can currently do, how many people you can have, what........

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