WASHINGTON - While Republicans nursed a brutal hangover from their US midterms defeat, President Donald Trump was busy -- showing off his new ballroom at the White House.
"It's going to be not only one of the biggest, but it'll be the most beautiful ballroom I think anywhere in the world," Trump told reporters inside the skeleton of the building.
It was a surreal start to one of Trump's most surreal press conferences.
Instead of the formal post-midterms remarks that previous presidents have made, the 80-year-old announced that he was there to sign the final steel beam going into the roof of his $400 million pride and joy.
He followed up with an extraordinary, 16-minute speech on everything from marble to kitchen layouts to drones.
"Now envision chandeliers all over the ceiling," the former real estate magnate sighed, speaking against a backdrop of a huge American flag. "Envision marble floors."
Absent from the billionaire president's monologue was any mention of the stinging rebuke from US voters angered by the Iran war and the cost of living.
And while reporters waited to question him on how he would govern when Democrats take control of Congress, Trump kept talking about how the ballroom's classical columns would dwarf those of the US Supreme Court.
"They're being carved out of beautiful limestone, and they'll be Corinthian -- the Corinthian design which is considered the creme de la creme," said Trump.
Then he was on to the marble floors.
"It's a vein that people have been after for 50 years, and the owner of the quarry didn't want to sell it, but he liked me," he touted.
He wasn't finished. Trump also wanted to talk about the roof of the building, which he said could hold up to 100 drones, or a number of helicopters, and how Chinese President Xi had admired the structure when he visited the White House in September.
- AFP