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‘Got the shaft’: Stephen King finally breaks his silence on what Americans got in return for Trump’s palace makeover

Stephen King gives a wry smile at the camera at an event for the movie It

Recently, President Donald Trump has been using taxpayer money for some rather selfish gains. The most egregious came from a demolition of the entire East Wing of the House House. What for, you may ask? A golden ballroom, the idea of which has been long since coveted by Trump.

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While it is true that the White House has been changed from presidency to presidency, those changes have always been small. A modernization here and there, essentially. What no president before has ever done is demolish an entire wing. That’s decades of history lost.

Of course, this does not matter to Trump in the slightest. After all, he’s currently denying SNAP benefits to Americans amidst the ongoing government shutdown while he plots his opulent ballroom that nobody wants. His team can insist all they want that renovations are normal; we know that they are not.

Beloved literary horror author and number one Trump hater Stephen King has finally broken his silence on the issue.

On X late Sunday night, he posted, “Trump got the gold ballroom. Regular Americans got the shaft.”

This has sparked a bit of debate in the comments, with some saying that renovations are typical, while others are saying that the stock market is at an all-time high, so why wouldn’t he? Both arguments miss the key point that King is making: Regular Americans are getting the shaft.

What kind of return are taxpayers getting on this ballroom? And how will it help the countless families affected by the continued government shutdown? King puts it out there, rather bluntly. Trump and the rest of his team do not care about regular Americans. Trump wants his gold-ensconced palace to become his gold-ensconced tomb.

Some commenters are also making a comparison to former President Barack Obama’s basketball court, which was renovated in 2009 in the midst of the financial crisis. However, unlike Trump, Obama simply added onto the existing White House tennis court, modifying it into the basketball court that remains today.

The difference between the two projects is simple: Trump tore down an entire wing. Obama made some modifications.

Meanwhile, people are going hungry, and even more are struggling to make ends meet even with supposedly “good paying jobs.” We can’t keep purposefully not seeing the forest for the trees.

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Rachel Tolleson
Rachel (she/her) is a freelancer at The Mary Sue. She has been freelancing since 2013 in various forms, but has been an entertainment freelancer since 2016. When not writing her thoughts on film and television, she can also be found writing screenplays, fiction, and poetry. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her cats Carla and Thorin Oakenshield but is a Midwesterner at heart. She is also a tried and true emo kid and the epitome of "it was never a phase, Mom," but with a dual affinity for dad rock. She also co-hosts the Hazbin Hotel Pod, which can be found on TikTok and YouTube.

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