MAGA Senator Lindsey Graham has cooked up a new plan to fast-track the construction of President Donald Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom—at taxpayers’ expense.
The South Carolina senator has unveiled a bill that allocates $400 million for Trump’s ballroom project, claiming that Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner proves that “the need is real.”
“I’d like the vote as soon as possible to accelerate what America needs: A secure facility for the president and others to meet in, to have a good time, to enjoy themselves without putting the nation at risk,” Graham said at a press conference on Monday.
The 70-year-old senator said that taxpayers would cover $332 million of the $400 million package, paid through “customs fees” on imported goods.
Trump has previously insisted that the ballroom’s $400 million price tag will be “privately funded” by his billionaire friends.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Graham’s new bid for the ballroom comes as Trump himself has argued that Saturday’s shooting, which appears to be the third attempt on his life, underscores the need for his grand hall.
The ballroom project, for which Trump tore down the White House’s historic East Wing, has proven deeply unpopular with Americans, who are growing increasingly frustrated as the president struggles to make good on his campaign promises to lower inflation and ease the cost of living.
Even Graham acknowledged, “Many people, I think, originally saw it as a vanity project,” during the press conference.
“I don‘t see it that way,” he continued, arguing that the gunman who stormed the Washington Hilton on Saturday “never would’ve gotten in” to a White House ballroom.
But a reporter pointed out that the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was a “private event at a private location for a private organization that’s not held by the White House,” and draws around 2,600 attendees—more than double the White House ballroom’s proposed 650 to 1,000 capacity.
“Why do you find it appropriate to link these two events so closely?” the reporter asked.
“Well, I find it appropriate if you are going to have the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States, the speaker of the House, and half the Cabinet in the room,” Graham replied.
However, there have been questions about why nearly the entire presidential line of succession was present inside the Washington Hilton ballroom in the first place.
Graham, who said that he has “never felt the sense of threat that exists today,” claimed, “This is not about Trump.” He also said that Sen. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who frequently breaks ranks, is “on board” with his bill.
Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other Democrats, however, say Republican efforts to fund the construction of Trump’s ballroom amount to little more than an attempt to suck up to the president.
“They want to kiss the president’s a-- over and over and over again,” Vermont Rep. Becca Balint told MeidasTouch’s Pablo Manriquez.
New Jersey Rep. Rob Menendez was similarly blunt, telling Manriquez, “There’s an affordability crisis out there. Nobody gives a s--- about the ballroom except for the president.”
