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Morning Joe 6:32 am EDT JONATHAN LEMIRE: Backlash over the project has really grown after the entire East Wing was demolished to make way for the new structure . . . Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan's latest piece for the Wall Street Journal is titled, "A Republic, But Can We Keep It?" In it, Peggy writes about America's long history and President Trump's heavy-handed changes to the government, including the demolition of the White House East Wing. You know, there are so many issues facing this country right now. It is of note, though, how the destruction of the East Wing and the way it was done. It'd be one thing if this was weeks long, months long, approval process where reviews and commissions and architects and Congress gets involved. That'd be one thing. But the way this was done so swiftly with no notice and the way plans just changed from a minor renovation, to the demolition of the entire East Wing really did seem to upset a lot of people. And to Peggy's point, an on-the-nose metaphor for how President Trump is leading in his second term. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, the president, David Ignatius, said just a couple weeks ago, we aren't going to touch the East Wing. And then two weeks later, the entire East Wing is destroyed. There are no plans. There is no consulting with historical organizations on trying to make sure the history of America is preserved. DAVID IGNATIUS: So, Joe, this is the presidency as wrecking ball. I think that's one reason that destruction of the East Wing has really upset people in a way that even Trump's most outrageous other actions haven't. Peggy Noonan is a very balanced, sensible person, but she was anguished by what she was seeing. And I think it comes down to the sense that we all have, we've been to the White House or certainly seen photographs of it. And we think of it as the people's house. It was built deliberately to be understated. It's not a palace like Victorian rulers have had. It's the people's house. And Donald Trump has turned it into his own personal property, or at least he behaves that way. In the middle of the night, the bulldozers come in and begin tearing down this historic building. If the Washington Post hadn't run a photograph, taken from across the street in the Treasury building, we might not have known for 24 hours that it was even happening. It was stealthy, in the middle of the night.
