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The United States Senate blocked on Sunday a funding allocation of approximately 400 million dollars that Republicans had attempted to include in a budget reconciliation package, which could have been earmarked for the controversial White House Ballroom, one of the flagship projects of President Donald Trump.
The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, determined that the provision did not comply with the Byrd Rule, the mechanism that regulates which provisions can be included in budget reconciliation bills to be approved by a simple majority and avoid the 60-vote threshold required for regular legislation.
The Republicans had tried to include the funds in a package of about $72 billion focused on border security and immigration, arguing that the money was necessary to strengthen the security of the White House.
The Republican argument used the attempted assassination on Trump during the Correspondents' Dinner on April 25 as a pretext, when Cole Thomas Allen opened fire at the entrance of the Washington Hilton, prompting the president, along with Melania Trump and Vice President JD Vance, to be evacuated.
Republican leaders in the Senate announced that they will redraft the text in an effort to make it compatible with the reconciliation rules, leaving the door open for another attempt.
The Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, harshly celebrated the setback: "Republicans tried to make taxpayers foot the bill for Trump's multimillion-dollar ballroom. Senate Democrats struck back and thwarted their first attempt."
Schumer went further and warned that the battle will continue: "Democrats will keep fighting this by all means at our disposal: through the Byrd procedure, in the full Senate via votes, and anywhere else Republicans try to plunder the money that Americans have earned through hard work to finance Trump's golden palace."
The project has been mired in controversy since Trump announced it in June 2025 on his Truth Social network.
The demolition of the East Wing of the White House —built in 1902 during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency and expanded in 1942— was completed in December 2025 without Congressional approval, leading to a lawsuit from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
In March 2026, a federal judge ordered a halt to the construction, but a court of appeals allowed it to continue temporarily in April, and this Saturday a panel of three judges from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled that construction can proceed while a district judge re-evaluates the case.
The projected space covers approximately 8,300 square meters in the location where the East Wing used to be, with costs escalating from 200 to around 400 million dollars due to a deliberate expansion of the design.
Trump insists that the project will be entirely funded by private donations and, just two days before the Senate block, announced on Truth Social that "it is under construction, ahead of schedule, and will be the most magnificent facility of its kind in the entire United States," with an inauguration planned for September 2028.
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