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Rhiannon12866

(260,764 posts) Sat Jun 20, 2026, 03:59 AM 11 hrs ago

You Won't Believe How Much The BALLROOM Costs Now - The Damage Report

Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project has seen its price tag balloon from an initial $100 million estimate to $400 million, as the administration dismissed concerns over the soaring cost and insisted taxpayers wouldn’t foot the bill. John Iadarola and Sharon Reed break it down on The Damage Report. - 06/19/2026.

Read more here: https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/newly-disclosed-records-reportedly-show-taxpayers-on-the-hook-for-ballroom-costs

"The original plan for Donald Trump’s White House ballroom vanity project was to spend $200 million. Three months later, the price tag grew to $250 million, then $300 million, before reaching $400 million. All the while, the president and his team said the public need not care about the rising price tag because taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook.
“We have no taxpayer putting up even 10 cents,” the Republican said on March 31.

Even at the time, White House officials apparently knew better. The Washington Post reported:
[A] detailed project summary prepared for the White House by the contractor more than three weeks before Trump’s comments estimated the total construction cost at $600 million — with more than half coming from taxpayers, according to a copy of the contractor estimate obtained by The Washington Post.

By the time Trump made his comments in March, the federal government had already approved more than a dozen payments to the contractor overseeing the work, Clark Construction, totaling tens of millions of dollars in public funds, according to a log of the contractor’s invoices obtained by The Post.

According to the records obtained by the Post, which have not been independently verified by MS NOW, Trump’s contractor didn’t just tell the White House that the project would cost $600 million — triple the original estimate shared with the public — it also shared projections from the outset that showed the work would rely heavily on taxpayer dollars by way of funds from the Secret Service and the White House Military Office.

In other words, even as Trump told Americans the project would be financed entirely by voluntary private donations, White House officials were being told the opposite by the contractor overseeing the endeavor."