(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended the cost increase of his massive White House ballroom construction project, the price tag of which has jumped from $200 million to nearly $400 million.
“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 in a post to his social media platform.
“The original price was 200 Million Dollars, the double sized, highest quality completed project will be something less than 400 Million Dollars. It will be magnificent, safe, and secure!” the president added.
Trump’s defense comes after his relentless criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s oversight of a multi-billion-dollar renovation of the central bank’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The cost of the Fed renovation increased, which the central bank said was due to rising costs of labor and material as well as unforeseen damage to the property.
The White House previously said it aimed to raise the $400 million through private donations, and Trump himself repeatedly promised no taxpayer money would be used to build the ballroom.
“So we did this, no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever,” Trump said about the ballroom in February. “This was all donations made by friends of mine and people that are — that love our country.”
But now, Republicans in Congress are proposing $1 billion for security-related aspects of the construction project.
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans said that they are aiming to secure $1 billion in funding for the Secret Service for security-related aspects of the East Wing renovation, including the ballroom project, as part of a broader funding package for immigration enforcement.
Trump’s social media post on Wednesday defending the higher costs made no mention of the proposed $1 billion infusion from Congress.
It’s unclear exactly how the Secret Service would spend the money — and the public may never know given that much of the agency’s spending related to White House security is classified.
But in federal court and in the president’s own social media posts, the administration has offered some examples of the security features that Trump has in mind.
In a filing in the ballroom lawsuit last month, the Justice Department said the protective enhancements to the East Wing project would include “missile resistant steel columns, Military-grade venting, drone-proof ceilings and bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” all aimed at forming a “fortified structural buffer” on the east side of the complex that would gird not only the ballroom, but also the main White House residence and the offices in the West Wing.
That April 27 filing also said the upgrades would include “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment, protective partitioning, and other features.”
Welcoming the proposed help from Republican lawmakers, a White House spokesman said on Monday that they “rightly recognized the need for these funds.”
Several Democrats criticized the Republican plan to allocate $1 billion toward the project.
“Donald Trump promised that ZERO taxpayer dollars will be used for his ballroom. He lied,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, the No. 2 House Democrat, wrote on X.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it a “vanity project.”
“While Americans are struggling to make ends meet as a result of President Trump’s failed policies, Republicans are focused on providing tens of billions of dollars for the President’s vanity ballroom project and cruel mass deportation campaign,” Durbin said in a statement. “Republicans are in danger of losing control of Congress in November, so they are going outside the usual bipartisan appropriations process to fund these unpopular policies through the end of the Trump Administration.”
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
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