New York Mag Suggests Trump Might Be on the White House Roof to 'Distract Us'

Brett T. | 6:40 PM on August 05, 2025

As Sam reported earlier, President Donald Trump broke X by taking a walk on the roof of the White House while also answering questions from reporters on the ground. Asking what the president was doing up there, he answered, "Taking a little look!"

We reported that story at 10 minutes to 4 p.m., but that was hours after New York Magazine's Intelligencer had published a piece by staff editor Chas Danner positing several theories on why the president was on the roof. The guy made his fortune in real estate, and this editor guesses he was doing some surveillance work for the new White House ballroom he and other private donors are paying for.

Danner suggested that it might all have been a distraction:

He's Trying to Distract Us:
As people on the internet say all the time about anything Trump does, this was an orchestrated distraction from something he doesn’t want us to pay attention to. We need to look away to see what’s really going on. If Trump is on the roof, he must not want us to see something happening down on the ground: Clearly, he is trying to make people forget about why he paved the Rose Garden.

Melania Trump redid the Rose Garden during his first term and paved it to improve wheelchair accessibility. Of course, liberals had a fit, even seeing swastikas and the letters KKK in the shrubs surrounding the garden. MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman described it as a "neo-fascist parade ground.” Tentacle pron aficionado Kurt Eichenwald was angry that a "foreigner" had "wrecked our history." Steve Schmit said that the Rose Garden renovation proved that Melania Trump was "the worst first lady in history."

Danner also posited that Trump just wanted to be the center of attention again:

Trump is annoyed with all the fake bad news and doesn’t feel he’s getting enough attention — so he grabbed an entourage and hit the roof. If so, well played, sir.