Records reveal $600M estimate for Trump’s #ballroom project, with MORE THAN HALF coming from #TAXPAYERS
An internal cost estimate in March by the project’s contractor ran $200 million more than #Trump has said publicly & counters his claims that no #TaxpayersMoney will be spent.
#FactCheck #TrumpLies #scam #fraud #GovernmentWaste
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/06/16/records-reveal-600m-estimate-trumps-ballroom-project-with-half-taxpayers/
Five months after the demolition of the White House’s #EastWing, #Trump claimed that the project to construct a massive #ballroom & a bunker in its place would cost up to $400 million & that private donors would pay for all of it.
“This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on March 31, describing the project as including bomb shelters & major medical facilities.
#FactCheck #TrumpLies #scam #fraud #GovernmentWaste #TaxpayersMoney
But a detailed project summary prepared for the White House by the contractor more than 3 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 WaPo.
#FactCheck #TrumpLies #scam #fraud #GovernmentWaste #TaxpayersMoney #Trump #ballroom
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 #PublicFunds, acc/to a log of the contractor’s invoices….
#FactCheck #TrumpLies #scam #fraud #GovernmentWaste #TaxpayersMoney #ballroom
Multiple project summaries provided to the White House by Clark Construction show that internal cost estimates have been significantly higher than admin officials have acknowledged in public comments or court filings. They also show that the work was projected to rely heavily on taxpayer dollars from the moment it was announced.
#FactCheck #TrumpLies #scam #fraud #GovernmentWaste #TaxpayersMoney #Trump #ballroom
The Post obtained 6 cost estimates for the entire #EastWing project, dated from July 2025 to March of this year, that show an increasing price tag as well as the expected sources of funding. Those records, as well as invoices & correspondence, provide the clearest accounting yet of #Trump’s most ambitious construction project in the nation’s capital. The project is deeply unpopular with most Americans, & even some Republican lawmakers have balked at funding it.
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