Northwest Republicans back Trump’s calls to finish White House ballroom after attempted shooting at gala

WASHINGTON – Northwest Republicans in Congress threw their support behind President Donald Trump’s effort to build a ballroom at the White House after an attempted shooting at a gala attended by the president on Saturday, but GOP lawmakers are split over whether taxpayers should pay for the costly construction project.

Trump has said taxpayers won’t need to cover the estimated $400 million cost of the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which would include a heavily fortified underground bunker, because private donors would pay for the project. But after a gunman tried to storm the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, allegedly trying to kill the president and members of his administration in attendance, Republican senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would provide public funding for the project.

“I’m a supporter of whoever the president is having a safe place to meet and conduct large gatherings,” Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, said Tuesday. “I think every future president will be grateful, and the American people, when they get a chance to visit, will be grateful for that facility.”

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, said the attempted shooting at the gala “underscored the need to have a secure place.” Prosecutors have charged the suspect, 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen of California, with three counts including attempting to assassinate the president.

“I absolutely support it; I think it’s overdue,” Newhouse said Thursday of the ballroom project. “Any events that we’ve had at the White House they have to put up a tent for, or just hold outside, it seems a little backyard-ish. So I think it’s a good thing.”

The Trump administration announced its plans for the ballroom in July, estimating it would cost $200 million and be completed by the end of Trump’s term in January 2029, and demolished the East Wing of the White House in October to make way for the new construction. The president has frequently spoken to the media about the project in the months since, expressing his excitement and talking in detail about the design choices he has made for the ballroom.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization created by Congress to protect historic buildings, sued in December to stop the ballroom project and a federal judge ordered a halt to the construction in March, saying Congress must authorize the work. But an appeals court ruling on April 17 allowed the below-ground work to continue, at least until court arguments scheduled for June 5.

The administration’s initial announcement of the project emphasized its value for hosting large events and didn’t mention any role for the facility for national security, but after a judge first blocked the construction, court filings from the Justice Department said it will include a hospital and “Top Secret Military installations, structures, and equipment.”

“Every time I’m down there, you realize how small and old it is, and in its current form, completely ill-suited for major events,” Baumgartner said of the White House. “And it certainly wasn’t built to withstand threats of drone attacks, missiles and all kinds of things. So the idea that they would tear down that fairly worthless section, where it was just an entrance hall before they tore it down, and build a modern facility that is well defended and capable, I think that’s a really smart thing.”

Democrats in Congress universally oppose the ballroom project, which they describe as a waste of money to indulge the ego of a president who prides himself on his own brand of luxurious buildings, and they have sought to contrast the project with the cost-of-living concerns they believe will define November’s midterm elections. A poll released Thursday by the Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos found that Americans oppose Trump’s ballroom project by a 2-to-1 margin.

“People are telling me that they want the price of groceries to go down,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Tuesday. “They’re scared about gas prices. They’re not into building a ballroom for the White House, so I just think it’s a misuse of funds.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Tuesday when asked about the project, “I’m happy to hear any debate, but I don’t think we need a ballroom.”

The legislation introduced Tuesday by GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama and Eric Schmitt of Missouri to provide $400 million in taxpayer dollars for the project has an uncertain path in the Senate, where it would need the support of several Democrats to overcome the filibuster and pass. So far, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is the only Democrat to support the ballroom project.

Some GOP lawmakers have floated the idea of including funding for the ballroom in a party-line bill that would use a procedural tool called budget reconciliation to skirt the filibuster, but that could make it harder to pass legislation Republican leaders have sought to focus narrowly on funding immigration enforcement.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Mike Crapo, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the Idaho Republican “supports President Trump’s efforts to build a ballroom at the White House for the purposes of hosting large-scale events in a safe, secure manner.”

“Many updates, expansions and additions to the White House within the last century have used various funding combinations including fully public, public-private partnerships, and fully private funding streams,” spokeswoman Kyra Smith said in a statement. “Senator Crapo is aware of several proposals in the Senate to advance construction of the ballroom and will evaluate any that come before the full Senate.”

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho Falls, said in a statement that he “absolutely” supports building the White House ballroom.

“Among all the very legitimate reasons to have an event space like this at the White House, the attempted shooting and the third assassination attempt in two years highlight the fact that this issue is a matter of safety and national security for the President of the United States and government officials,” Simpson said.

While Republicans are largely united in their support for building the ballroom, some want Congress to fund the project with public money while others prefer that it be financed by corporations and other private donors, as Trump originally promised.

A spokeswoman for Rep. Russ Fulcher, a Republican who represents North Idaho and most of the state’s western half, said in an email that he “supports the construction of a White House ballroom and related infrastructure utilizing private funds.”

Baumgartner said he would like lawmakers to approve money for the project but he doubts his Democratic colleagues would support that, because “the Democrat base is just so outraged by anything the president touches, they make it extremely difficult for the for elected Democrats to give one inch to the president.” He added that while it’s great that the White House is so accessible to the public, “we have to also have some reasonableness and common sense about how dangerous the world is.”

“My preference would be that it came through Congress and that we appropriated it, but if the president is able to get it paid for so the American taxpayers aren’t on the hook, I think the net result is going to be the same,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “Having been down there, I fully support the addition of the ballroom as a needed remodel and to make our country safer and protect people – not just the president – and I’m comfortable with how it’s being funded.”

Newhouse said he hopes that private donations are at least “a major part” of the ballroom financing and isn’t worried about conflict-of-interest concerns raised by critics, adding that he didn’t remember objections when billionaire David Rubenstein donated $7.5 million to help restore the Washington Monument after it was damaged by an earthquake in 2011.

“I always try to remove the personality from the policy, and I think that’s what we should have on this,” Newhouse said, adding that he had questions about why lawmakers were suddenly talking about using taxpayer dollars for the ballroom. “I was totally fine with the president’s plan and just want to know what happened, what changed.”