Trump said no taxpayer money would be spent on the ballroom. A contractor’s invoices show otherwise. ⁠95%

By Sarah Blaskey⁠0% Jonathan O'Connell⁠0%

6/16/2026, 3:00:01 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 4 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Negativity Bias, and Anecdotal, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 73.8% saturation with 45 hits. Analysis detected 60 faulty-reasoning hits from 61 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 91% and a BS Rank of ⁠95% (1,239 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 94.30% of the article peer group.

Five months after the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, President Donald Trump claimed that the project to construct a massive ballroom and a bunker in its place would cost up to $400 million and that private donors would pay for all of it. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 8.2%Sarah Blaskey: 7.3%The Washington Post: 3.8%Confirmation Bias8.2%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 5.0%The Washington Post: 1.3%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 11.9%The Washington Post: 4.9%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.5%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 73.8%Sarah Blaskey: 48.7%The Washington Post: 21.5%Framing Effect73.8%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.8%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 3.6%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 3.6%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 8.2%Sarah Blaskey: 31.6%The Washington Post: 18.5%Negativity Bias8.2%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.5%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.2%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.8%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.1%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.4%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.4%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.9%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 16.8%The Washington Post: 5.2%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.5%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 1.4%The Washington Post: 5.9%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.5%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 13.5%The Washington Post: 6.3%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 4.5%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.6%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 8.2%Sarah Blaskey: 0.6%The Washington Post: 1.9%Anecdotal8.2%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 5.3%The Washington Post: 4.8%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 1.2%The Washington Post: 2.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 20.2%The Washington Post: 15.2%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.0%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 13.5%The Washington Post: 3.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.4%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Blaskey: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

61 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker18%attributed speech50writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Trump • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 45 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Trump

0%flagged-word coverage
11 attributed words100% of attributed speech100% writer coverage

No manipulation-pattern hits were found in this speaker's attributed words or the writer's voice.

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.