Perhaps this will help to enslave Trump’s ongoing battle with the flow of water, and prevent him from touching tangents at events in the White House, such as this late last month: “So, shower heads – you take a shower, the water does not come out “You wash your hands, the water does not come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer, or you take a shower longer? Because my hair – I do not know about you, but it must be perfect. Perfect.”
It is not only 2020 that has brought its ire against weak water. Trump then drew a round table with business leaders last year.
“We have a situation where we are looking very closely at washbasins and showers and other bathroom elements, where you turn on the faucet – and in areas where there is a huge amount of water, where the water flows to the sea, because you could never handle it, and you do not get water, “said the president. “You turn on the tap and you get no water. They take a shower and water comes out of drips. Drip a little, drip out very quietly.”
It can sometimes be challenging to discern whether Trump’s issue is due to his obsession with realizing his ideal hairstyle (he coifs his famous swoop-over look himself, according to those with knowledge of his style habits), or the real thing. water that does (or does not, in this case) wet his hair. Based on indicators, it seems that there is a case for the latter.
The White House has a history of plagued burdens, mostly based on age and wear and tear. A building as massive as the House of Commons, about 55,000 square feet, and built before interior design itself existed, will certainly have challenges. Pipes flushed and updated over the decades, toilets added based on the different needs of individual first family performances, have all caused unusual backups.
For example, there are 15 bathrooms only on the second and third floors of Trump’s private residence – six on the floor where the president sleeps, 9 on the floor that houses the Solarium, the gym, the games room, the first lady private hair and makeup salon and several guest rooms.
One could assume, based on the ongoing, public complaints, that the main problem is the fault of the shower in Trump’s own master bathroom, part of the president’s suite. Maybe he did not like the pressure of the shower that the Obamas had there for him, which was also specially installed – what the two presidents have in common is the desire for specific shower heads.
In 2017, then-White House usher Stephen Rochon told CNN that staff had to “shake” to find the “perfect rainbow head” prior to President Barack Obama’s arrival.
“One thing we were very aware of from the new president wanted to have a special shower head,” Rochon said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.
Plumbing over time
Obama, and Trump for that matter, are not the only presidents with peccadillos plumbers.
John Quincy Adams suggested that a source pump be installed at the Treasury building at the White House, not for bathing – that was the Potomac River before – but so that he, a coveted gardener, could pick up his plants and flowers , according to materials provided by the White House Historical Association.
Andrew Jackson, in 1833, was the first president to actually put water in the White House building, ordering it to be pulled from a newly purchased spring at Franklin Square in downtown Washington, DC, and piped to the White House, but it was not until Franklin Pierce that permanent bathing facilities with running hot and cold water were added to the East Wing.
Before Pierce, Martin Van Buren, apparently a stickler for bathing equipment, dragged brass bosses to the residence for him and his family, according to White House historians; the task of filling them with hot water fell to the householders.
Chester Arthur wanted to expand the private presidential chamber, which he did by combining two smaller, more public ones, the former White House chief executive wrote in a 1934 story in the Saturday Evening Post.
A comprehensive modern renovation of the White House sanitation did not occur until the massive renovation added by Harry S. Truman, from 1948-1952. When Truman returned to the White House across the street from Blair House, where he and his family were under construction, his new baths apparently had a hidden message in the glass on the floor. back, in the article, in the Plumbing and Manufacturing magazine. The message read: “In this bath the man whose heart is always clean and who serves his people sincerely bathes.”
The shower of Lyndon B. Johnson
Despite the differing degrees and personal care habits of past presidents, no one was as consumed with showers as Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson, it seems, could give Trump a run for his money when it came to complaints about water pressure.
Kate Andersen Brower, a CNN commentator and author of “The Residence,” said the two presidents have similarities in personalities, and that while Trump continues to have emotion over water during a global pandemic, “Johnson did the same during Vietnam.”
“He was an egomaniac who kept himself busy with his dumb obsession,” Brower said.
At the time, the White House farmer was a man named Reds Arrington, who, Brower writes in “The Residence,” was “tortured” by LBJ’s obsession with the White House water pressure, which he wanted “like a fire hose,” and temperature, which he required to be as warm as possible.
“When (Johnson) found that a new shower for the president required laying a new pipe and installing a new pump, Johnson demanded that the army pay for it. The project, which cost tens of thousands of dollars, was paid for with classified funds. which were meant for security badges, “wrote Brower, who added that Johnson would still call Reds and cry his displeasure, crying once:” If I can move tens of thousands of troops in a day, you can secure the bathroom as I want it! “
Johnson’s bizarre shower also included mirrors installed on the ceiling. When Richard Nixon moved in “he saw someone after the extensive setup and said, ‘Get rid of this game,'” Brower said.
It’s hard to say whether Trump will ever find satisfactory levels of water pressure, only time will tell, but America will probably hear about it.
Trump has not limited his concentration to showers, either, and sometimes focuses on what he calls “low-stream” toilets. Many times in public comments he has said that playing is just not what it used to be.
“People flush toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once,” the president said at a White House event in December.
The new regulations for water pressure announced this week are the first indicator that Trump’s long national nightmare over showerheads would come to an end.
“President Trump has promised the American people that he would reduce unusual federal regulations on U.S. consumers, and this proposed regulation on showerheads does just that,” Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes told CNN in a statement.
If adopted, Hynes said, the rule would allow “Americans – not Washington bureaucrats – to choose what kind of shower heads they have in their homes.”
And with those shower heads, even Trump can feel better about the efforts he is making to achieve what he calls his ‘beautiful’ hair.
“Oh, I’m trying like hell to hide that cold spot, people. I’m working hard on it,” Trump said at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference. “It does not look bad. Hey, we hang in there, we hang in there, we hang in there. Sure? Together we hang in there.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the year in which Andrew Jackson commissioned water to be brought into the White House.
.
