Overview
- The New York Times published an excerpt from Regime Change on Friday reporting that Karoline Leavitt found the president using super glue to affix gold appliqués to the Oval Office mantel.
- The anecdote underscores a pattern of personal styling that reporters say includes heavy gilding, repaving the Rose Garden and converting the East Wing into a large ballroom.
- Reporting cited in the book and by other outlets says the ballroom’s price has swollen from an originally touted $200 million paid by private donors to about $600 million with roughly half likely covered by taxpayers.
- The East Wing ballroom project is the subject of ongoing legal challenges and fresh oversight questions about approvals, contracting and the use of public funds for what critics call private‑club styling.
- Journalists say the book’s disclosures, together with earlier reporting on carpet and staff concerns, have stitched separate issues of décor, cost and process into a single story that could prompt more congressional and legal scrutiny.