President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project, long touted as being funded exclusively with donor money, could now potentially get a $1 billion boost from Senate Republicans, as a provision for it was slipped into their new reconciliation bill that's meant to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the remainder of Trump's term.
But privately, some Republican aides are griping that this just kicks a hornet's nest that is going to make the whole thing harder to pass, reported Semafor on Wednesday.
“If there is a billion taxpayer dollars for the ballroom, then the whole debate over reconciliation becomes a ballroom debate,” a GOP aide told Semafor's Burgess Everett. “Maybe it survives. Just becomes a huge distraction and liability when trying to pass the [expletive] thing.”
Publicly, Republicans deny the $1 billion provision is for the ballroom at all, but simply for "security" features related to it — and that a clause in the bill prohibits the money from any use for non-security features.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) defended the bill along those lines, telling reporters it “seems to be a reasonable long-term investment for security reasons, and providing a larger venue that is often needed.”
However, when a federal judge blocked construction of the ballroom earlier this year while making a narrow exception for national security elements, Trump administration officials creatively interpreted the entire ballroom to be a national security project, citing its inclusion of bulletproof glass and a "drone resistant" roof. The judge slammed this interpretation of the ruling, clarifying only construction of a below-ground military bunker can move forward.
Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday to justify the ballroom's massive increase in price tag since the start of the project, saying it was a "necessary change."