this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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In all honesty, "limit the state dinner to who the white house can seat" sounds like a perfectly reasonable alternative to tents.
The home of the national manager doesn't need to be a venue big enough to seat every last member of Congress, the cabinet, the supreme Court, every other statewide elected official, AND a foreign dignitary with their entourage.
If we do need a venue that big, it should either be part of the Capitol or a free standing structure.
That's a reasonable way to think about it, but what "should" happen and what "does" happen are different.
It seems like historically, state visits happen at the White House, which to me makes a lot of sense given the logistics of hosting foreign entourage.
The US is a world power, part of being a world power is being able to project that power, including through aesthetics, compare the aesthetics of a state visit in the Kremlin and Great Hall of the People vs. hosting in a temporary tent on a lawn.
Surely you don't think the white House is the only suitable banquet hall in Washington DC?
If there was a suitable banquet hall, why are state receptions held on the South Lawn by every admin?
Not passing judgement, making an observation
For starters, there's the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, located less than 2 miles from the White House, where the White House Correspondents' Dinner is held every year and has a seating capacity of more than twice what this one is planned to have.
It's really not like DC is hurting for hotels, ballrooms, convention centers and other suitable places to host large events.
As for why have it on the south lawn when those sorts of facilities are available? I ask myself a similar question whenever I get a wedding invite and the venue is outdoors, but people choose and even prefer to have these sorts of formal events outside sometimes, so this is cutting into available space to host those sorts of events, because it's a lot harder to find a large private outdoor space in DC that can be easily secured than it is to find a suitable indoor space.
Yes as if that is the only thing the US government did that made people's lives more difficult and didn't make sense...