The Orange Blob schemed to keep his teardown of the White House’s East Wing hidden from the public, according to author Michael Wolff. Via The Daily Beast:

The president abandoned his earlier promise to leave the East Wing untouched after learning from engineers that the quickest way to complete his $300 million ballroom would be to raze the historic building, Wolff shared on the Inside Trump’s Head podcast.

“They had a meeting and they said, ‘Listen, it really would be much cheaper and faster just to tear down the East Wing,’” Wolff said, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Rather than weigh the consequences of erasing the 123-year-old building’s history, the president’s first concern was reportedly how to keep its potential destruction hidden from the public.

“[Trump] said—this was given to me as a quote—he said, ‘F---. But can we do the demolition at night?,’“ Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles.

“So the idea would be, Washington would wake up and the East Wing would have evaporated,” Coles said.

Pointing to Trump’s background as a prominent New York City developer, Wolff noted, “That’s a real estate developer trick—what you tear down, you cannot build back. So it’s a fait accompli.”