Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) hammered critics of President Trump's renovation of the East Wing of the White House, suggesting their outrage is selective following race riots in 2020 that led to the removal of numerous statues of historical figures.
CNN correspondent Manu Raju channeled the left's anger, confronting Hawley about the President supposedly "uprooting" an "iconic building" to create a big, beautiful ballroom.
Without missing a beat, the senator from the "Show Me State" showed Raju why their response is less a legitimate beef and more an example of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
“I hear all of a sudden from my liberal friends that they’re very concerned about our history. Really? These are the same people who tore down every statue they could get their hands on in the last four years," Hawley offered in his history lesson. “Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt.”
This isn't ancient history, either. This was just four to five years ago that the destruction of our nation's history peaked. We all remember the pitchfork mobs going out to every public park and tearing down statues because they felt emboldened to do so. To rewrite history.
Senator Josh Hawley dismantles CNN’s narrative about President Trump’s White House renovation during a live interview.
— Overton (@overton_news) October 22, 2025
When reporter Manu Raju asked: “What about just uprooting the—you know—this is an iconic building?”@HawleyMO exposed their faux outrage instantly:
“Manu, I… pic.twitter.com/FR9oKdUV2w
READ MORE: Watch - Legacy Media Is All Smiles When Presidents Renovating the WH Are Democrats
Hawley further appropriately dismissed the leftist media's anger over a story that should have been a footnote in their coverage of the Trump presidency.
“They didn’t have any concern for history then. Now all of a sudden, they’re like, oh, the facade of the East Wing is iconic,” he scoffed. "Oh, give me a break. I mean, give me a break!"
In a separate interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham, Hawley again laughed at the manufactured story.
“Now they’re the great defenders of history?" he questioned. "Give me a break. They hate Donald Trump. They hate everything he does."
Bear in mind that President Trump is renovating the East Wing using his own funds and outside private sponsorships. They don't even have wasting taxpayer money as a legitimate argument. There is quite literally no legitimate argument to be made here. It's anger simply because it's Trump.
As my colleague Becca Lower writes, the left "is all smiles when Presidents renovating the White House are Democrats."
With that in mind, check out CNN's coverage (Manu's outlet) of former President Barack Obama using $376 million in taxpayer dollars to renovate the White House in 2010.
A CNN report from 2010:
— Christian Collins (@CollinsforTX) October 22, 2025
$376 million White House renovation during the Obama Administration.
Where was the Democrat outrage then? pic.twitter.com/MvLVDFcTru
The coverage is decidedly less anger-inducing.
Obama's demolition project involved overhauling the heating and cooling (HVAC), electrical, and safety systems, as well as retrofitting the Situation Room and excavating space beneath the West Wing. If Trump's renovations were for the exact same reason, the left would still be having an aneurysm.
Obama also undertook an Oval Office redesign, converted a tennis court into a basketball court in 2009, and established a 1,100-square-foot kitchen garden to promote sustainability initiatives.
As for those statues, President Trump signed an executive order in March directing Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to review and "restore" any "public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties" that may have been improperly removed in the past five-plus years.
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