The U.S. Senate has blocked $1 billion in taxpayer funding for security upgrades tied to Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, dealing a setback to one of the president’s most ambitious and controversial construction projects. Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled Saturday that the proposal would require a 60-vote threshold to advance. Republicans hold 53 seats; Democrats are unanimously opposed.
Trump has already demolished the White House’s East Wing to make way for a 90,000-square-foot structure he has described as his “legacy project” and “the finest building of its kind anywhere in the world.” The president says $400 million in private donations will fund the ballroom itself, but Senate Republicans have sought the additional billion in federal money to cover Secret Service security upgrades and underground structures connected to the project. Democrats have attacked it as a wasteful use of public funds at a time when Americans are grappling with inflation and rising fuel costs driven by the Iran war.
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate budget committee, warned that Democrats are “prepared to challenge any change” Republicans might propose to get around the parliamentarian’s ruling. If Republicans fail to revise the legislation successfully, they may be unable to include the ballroom-related funding in a separate $72 billion spending package on immigration enforcement they plan to bring to the Senate floor.
The White House says the ballroom will be completed around September 2028, near the end of Trump’s second term. Democrats, who are hoping to retake Congress in November’s midterm elections, are using Republican support for the project to portray the party as out of touch with the cost-of-living concerns of ordinary Americans — an argument Trump himself inadvertently bolstered on Tuesday. Asked how much Americans’ financial situations were weighing on his negotiations with Iran, he replied: “Not even a little bit.” He added: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.”
