Trump wants to cover a White House office building with ‘magic paint.’ Experts advise against it | CNN Politics

President Donald Trump privately advocated for painting an ornate federal office building next to the White House with a “magic paint with silicate,” CNN has learned. But ahead of a key vote on exterior changes to the sprawling Gilded Age structure, a panel of experts is warning the so-called magic paint could be incompatible with the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s granite exterior. Trump, who has spent significant time during his second term shaping the White House and Washington to his aesthetic taste, is proposing painting the ornate office building a bright white. The Commission of Fine Arts, which oversees changes to federal buildings and has been stacked with Trump loyalists, on Thursday will review and weigh in on the plans for the first time. Renderings submitted to the commission show two potential options: one with the entire structure painted white and one that paints the structure white but leaves the building’s exposed basement and sub-basement in its original granite. The existing structure “has been largely neglected since its construction in the late 1800s,” the White House said in materials sent to the commission ahead of Thursday’s meeting, p