Controversial Remarks from Philadelphia DA
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner made a striking suggestion regarding the White House Ballroom during his remarks at an event on Tuesday.
He was participating in the 24th annual slavery commemoration held at President George Washington’s Home in Old City, as reported by NBC 10 Philadelphia. It was here that he floated the idea of blowing up the ballroom.
“There will not be a ballroom. There will not be a ballroom. There will not be a Kennedy Center renamed for a fool. That won’t be happening. What’s going to happen is, in about 10 to 15 years, we’ll all be here smiling because we’ll have won. They will have lost,” he stated.
“And I’m going to have a paper weight sitting on my desk. And do you know what that paper weight’s going to be? It’s going to be a piece of the ballroom after we all blow it up. That’s what it’s going to be,” he said.
Krasner elaborated that the ballroom would be destroyed in an official event, with the remaining pieces sold as paperweights, and the proceeds used to return money to taxpayers.
Additionally, he described former President Donald Trump as a “pain in the ass,” labeling him as “the embodiment of hate, ignorance, and depriving people of their vote and education.”
In July 2025, Trump changed panels on a slavery exhibit at Washington’s Home, according to the Associated Press. The original panels from 2010 detailed how Washington had nine enslaved individuals in his household during the 1790s.
While the new panels retained some historical context, critics accused Trump of trying to sanitize history. Michael Coard, a lawyer and founder of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition, responded to this alteration.
“What if there’s a president next time who doesn’t like the Liberty Bell because it was used by abolitionists? What if there’s a president who doesn’t like the Statue of Liberty due to too many immigrants? Do we then remove the Statue of Liberty?” he raised as a concern.
On August 3, the City of Philadelphia requested the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a lawsuit contesting the removal of the prior panels, as reported by FOX 29.
Attorney General Todd Blanche also reacted to Krasner’s comments about blowing up the White House Ballroom during a Fox News appearance, stating, “It’s DISGUSTING that a district attorney in Philadelphia, who has a city with its OWN problems, is so focused on what the president is doing at the White House.”
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a temporary ruling allowing construction on the White House Ballroom to proceed despite U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s attempt to halt it.
Senate Republicans had initially proposed allocating Trump up to $1 billion for security enhancements tied to this project in a reconciliation bill from May 2026, but these funds were ultimately removed before the bill advanced.
