President Donald Trump dismissed claims Wednesday that the White House ballroom has suffered cost overrun after its price tag skyrocketed from $400 million in private donations to $1 billion sourced from American taxpayers.
Trump claimed that there was no cost overrun because he’d previously announced that the cost of construction had gone up.
“The only reason the cost has changed is because, after deep rooted studies, it is approximately twice the size, and a far higher quality, than the original proposal, which would not have been adequate to handle the necessary events, meetings, and even future Inaugurations,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“This was a necessary change, it was done long ago, but the Fake News failed to report it, trying to make it look like there was a cost overrun. Actually, it is coming in ahead of schedule, and under budget!” Trump added.
Trump originally claimed that the project would only cost $200 million, but that number later ballooned to $300 million, and then $400 million after he decided to tack on extra construction. The ballroom had previously been paid for by private donors, many of whom held multi-figure federal contracts.
Then, earlier this week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley requested $1 billion for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the ballroom’s construction. Trump is simply pretending the outrage is over the old price tag, and not the exorbitant one Senate Republicans hope to pass, which will come at a cost to U.S. taxpayers.
Trump’s defense rings especially hollow, considering that the DOJ launched an investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the cost of renovations to the Fed’s office buildings. The suit was a pretext to attack Powell as he tried to maintain the agency’s independence from the White House.
In March, Judge James Boasberg quashed subpoenas for the criminal case against Powell, finding that the government has produced “essentially zero evidence” to substantiate its claims.