Report exposes hidden $50 billion price tag on Trump's ballroom

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Jun 6, 2026 #whitehouse #ballroom #donors

A report from the non-profit watchdog group Public Citizen points out that while Donald Trump insists that donations are paying for his vanity project ballroom, those donors are being granted federal contracts totaling more than $50 billion. MS NOW: My Source for News, Opinion, and the World. » Subscribe to MS NOW:

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Transcript

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1 second

When Donald Trump demolished the histori east wing of the White House to build his gaudy new ballroom, he made the American people a promise.

7 seconds

He said the whole project would not cost the American taxpayer a dime.

12 seconds

Now, sure, like any construction project, it was going to cost money and building Trump's ballroom was going to cost a lot of money, a whopping $400 million dollars,

21 seconds

but it was all going to be paid for by wealthy people and big businesses.

25 seconds

Basically a generous gift out of the kindness of their own hearts.

29 seconds

Trump repeated that line over and over, so much so that when his allies eventually proposed spending an additional $1 billion

37 seconds

of taxpayer money with a significant chunk of the ballroom security, for a significant chunk of the ballroom security, people freaked out.

45 seconds

Even many

1 minute

of his administration had already spent 50 times that much in taxpayer money to build his ballroom.

1 minute, 7 seconds

What if I told you Trump had already taken $50 billion out of the U .S. Treasury and spent it?

1 minute, 13 seconds

All is part of what looks very much like a pay-to-play scheme to finance his vanity project. And I'm not making this up.

1 minute, 21 seconds

A brand new report from the government watchdog group Public Citizen looked into the private donors who are supposedly funding the Trump ballroom as a gift.

1 minute, 29 seconds

Guess what their investigation found?

1 minute, 31 seconds

Quote, more than half of the publicly identified donors to President Donald Trump's White House Ballroom project have one new

1 minute, 39 seconds

or expanded federal contracts worth more than $50 billion during the past six months.

1 minute, 46 seconds

The report also found that most of those same companies are also facing federal enforcement actions over alleged wrongdoing, and that some have had such actions suspended by the

1 minute, 55 seconds

Trump administration since the start of Trump's second term.

1 minute, 59 seconds

So just to put a fine point on this, these rich donors and corporations gave Trump $400 million to build his ballroom.

2 minutes, 7 seconds

And then, according to this report, the Trump administration gave those rich donors and corporations $50 billion in taxpayer money

2 minutes, 13 seconds

in new or expanded government contracts that they were not getting before.

2 minutes, 19 seconds

And to top it all off, the report says the Trump administration dropped enforcement actions against a few of the companies as well,

2 minutes, 26 seconds

as if they were paying into a state-sanctioned protection racket.

2 minutes, 30 seconds

Now, the White House denied a pay-to-play arrangement, but by every appearance this certainly looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck too.

2 minutes, 40 seconds

But that's how Trump sees the federal government.

2 minutes, 42 seconds

He thinks the federal property and taxpayer money are all his to play with.

2 minutes, 45 seconds

Today, Trump administration officials were in court defending his big ballroom project.

2 minutes, 50 seconds

During that hearing, a federal judge asked one of the lawyers for the Trump administration this hypothetical about Trump's authority to unilaterally destroy government property.

3 minutes

He says if the government decides very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, nothing can be done?

3 minutes, 6 seconds

The Trump administration lawyer reported, quote, I think that's right. Yes.

3 minutes, 13 seconds

Yes, the Trump administration argued today in court that Trump could bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and no law could stop him.

3 minutes, 21 seconds

It's an audacious claim until you remember that this is the same guy who once had his lawyers argue before the Supreme Court that as president, Trump could assassinate his political rival and be immune from prosecution.

3 minutes, 30 seconds

And remember, Trump's handpicked judges on the Supreme Court ultimately agreed with those arguments enough to grant pretty broad presidential immunity.

3 minutes, 39 seconds

So it's no particular surprise that Trump acts like he's not bound by any rules.

3 minutes, 45 seconds

Take his latest construction project, the big triumphal arch that he wants to build right in front of Arlington National Cemetery, one that would cast a huge shadow over the graves of American service members.

3 minutes, 56 seconds

Trump's decision to increase the size of the arch has even alarmed the architect who first proposed the idea, who told the New York Times

4 minutes, 3 seconds

that Trump's new scale is, quote, way too big for that site.

4 minutes, 6 seconds

Trump is demanding that his arch be 250 feet tall, despite an existing law that would restrict

4 minutes, 16 seconds

TRUMP'S HAND-PICKED FEDERAL PLANNING COMMISSION DECIDED THAT LAW DOESN'T APPLY TO DONALD TRUMP'S ARCH.

4 minutes, 23 seconds

THE CHAIRMAN OF THAT Commission, who happens to be Donald Trump's staff secretary, says he's skeptical of the long-accepted

4 minutes, 30 seconds

legal arguments about the law's applicability to the arch.

4 minutes, 33 seconds

They're also ignoring concerns about air traffic, as New York Times reports, aviation experts are warning that the arch's height could actually cause problems for the already

4 minutes, 42 seconds

problem-plagued airspace over Washington, D .C.

4 minutes, 46 seconds

Remember that just nine days into Trump's second administration, that very airspace was the site of the deadliest air collision over U .S.

4 minutes, 54 seconds

territory in decades.

4 minutes, 55 seconds

You would think Donald Trump would want to avoid any future problems in the airspace over the nation's capital, but Trump is willing to overlook

5 minutes, 3 seconds

all of those concerns to get his arch, which more than anything else feels like a monument to himself.

5 minutes, 8 seconds

He craves symbols of his own power, like he's an authoritarian leader in some tin-pot dictatorship, and he's never been shy about those aspirations.

5 minutes, 16 seconds

He openly joked about being a dictator on day one of his presidency.

5 minutes, 20 seconds

He's the same guy who once said his fake claims of election fraud warranted terminating the Constitution itself, and last year Donald Trump basically

5 minutes, 28 seconds

declared himself above the law saying, he who serves his country does not violate any law.

5 minutes, 33 seconds

As if he is the sole arbiter of what is and is not legal.

5 minutes, 40 seconds

And Trump has surrounded himself with lackeys who are willing to support that expansive theory of power.

5 minutes, 44 seconds

Just this week, Trump told his aides to officially begin the process of appointing his former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, to permanently fill the role of attorney general.

5 minutes, 54 seconds

And just today, Blanche made it clear that he intends to use that office to shield Donald Trump from accountability for his actions, even after his term ends.

6 minutes, 5 seconds

Well, do I believe it's a possibility that the Democrats will, will, will, go after President Trump, his family, anybody that knows him, anybody that worked for him.

6 minutes, 13 seconds

I think they've proven that to be true and what can we do about it is we can just keep on exposing when we learn about the weaponization that happened for many years.

6 minutes, 23 seconds

We can keep on exposing it and putting, putting, putting roadblocks in place so it never happens again.

6 minutes, 30 seconds

Putting roadblocks in place, not so that it can never happen again, so that Donald Trump cannot be held accountable for his actions.

6 minutes, 37 seconds

The irony here is that Trump and his administration are acting like Trump is invincible at a time when his popularity is at rock bottom.

6 minutes, 45 seconds

A new poll out this week finds that 61 % of Americans now disapprove of the job that Donald Trump is doing as president.

6 minutes, 53 seconds

That's a record for Donald Trump in this particular poll.

6 minutes, 56 seconds

How does a country deal with a president who seems more and more emboldened to grab on to power as the American public continues to lose faith in his ability to lead?

7 minutes, 5 seconds

I have just the people to ask.

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