‘Beyond Parody’: Trump’s Desperate Bid to Save His Crumbling White House Ballroom Scheme Takes an Absolutely Unhinged Turn, and No One Can Believe What They’re Hearing
President Donald Trump is taking a different, eyebrow-raising tactic in his efforts to get American taxpayers to foot the bill for his massive, unapproved ballroom as support for the project slips away.
But Trump is nothing if not tenacious, and he’s not above using any means necessary to get his way, even though when he tore down the East Wing of the White House without the proper building permits and other necessary approvals last summer, he promised repeatedly that private donors would fund what has become a ballooning boondoggle for the president.
After the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month, Trump nonsensically and almost immediately said that his ballroom would have prevented the attack at the Washington Hilton and that taxpayers should now fund the $400 million addition, which has jumped from an original estimate of $200 million.
By the way, the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner has never been held at the White House and is always held at a venue in Washington.
But Republicans jumped on board with the scheme and tried to add $1 billion into their huge Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol spending bill, but when the Senate clerk of the rules said it was a violation of the Byrd Rule or rules of budget reconciliation, they realized it couldn’t pass the chamber with a simple majority.
Trump’s MAGA Allies Turn to Religion to Rescue the Project
Now Trump has apparently appealed to his evangelical MAGA base to help him force Americans to pay for what critics are saying has turned into a gigantic fraud.
Over the weekend at a prayer event on the National Mall as part of the Trump administration’s celebration of the country’s 250th birthday, a popular Christian author and conservative radio host said Trump was divinely ordained and sent by God to build the ballroom.
“It’s hard to believe that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand,” Trump sycophant Eric Metaxas said on Sunday, May 17, at the “Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving” celebration.
“It’s extraordinary. We only had to wait 200 years,” Metaxas astoundingly claimed.
Social media spun sideways lampooning this latest Trump ploy to wriggle out of his promise to pay for the giant ballroom.
“It’s Beyond Parody — Trump Was Sent by God to Build the White House Ballroom After 200 Years. The Messiah Has Finally Arrived,” a Threads user joked, ending the post with a laughing emoji.
Another poster chimed in, “So now they’re going with ‘God wants a ballroom,’” also ending his post with a laughing emoji.
“You don’t remember Jesus saying: ‘feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, visit the prisoner. But above all, build the tyrant a ballroom’……is that not in your Bible?” still another Threads user remarked.
Others took a more serious tone. “Using the name of the Lord & the name of Trump– in the same sentence —is blasphemy.”
Costs Explode as Republicans Search for a Backdoor Funding Plan
The president has spent almost a year proudly crowing about his “big, beautiful ballroom,” repeatedly touting it as a signature addition to the White House.
When he first introduced the project last July, he said that private donors would pay for the $200 million, 90-thousand-square-foot addition and that it would be completed by September of 2026.
As costs started ballooning and legal action began bogging down the rebuild, the price inched up to $250 million, then jumped to $400 million, with a new completion date set sometime after Trump’s second term ends.
But Republicans are not finished trying to ram funding for the ballroom down taxpayers’ throats. This week they’re debating a budget reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement operations for the next four years, and The Hill is reporting that GOP leaders are hoping to keep the $1 billion in the measure for the ballroom by classifying it as money for the Secret Service for security upgrades for the ballroom and other locations around the White House.