Trump Says Ballroom Is His ‘Gift’ While Demanding $1 Billion

By

Margaret Hartmann,

senior editor for Intelligencer who has worked at New York since 2012

From the very start, Donald Trump has framed the White House ballroom as a generous gift from him to the American people. The president’s initial announcement said the addition would be built “compliments of a man known as Donald J. Trump.” Over the past year, Trump and other White House officials repeatedly said the ballroom won’t “cost taxpayers a dime.”

However, we quickly learned the project would actually be funded by “President Trump and other patriot donors.” In practice, that means Trump has collected $400 million from corporations and individuals (including many that have business with the federal government). It’s unclear if the billionaire president has personally thrown in anything, aside from the $24.5 million he won from a YouTube settlement. And earlier this month, Republicans slipped $1 billion in taxpayer funding for ballroom “security adjustments and upgrades” into a filibusterproof reconciliation bill.