Daily Kos85%
We’re sure paying a lot for the ballroom we’re not paying for 87%
By Lisa Needham97%
6/30/2026, 10:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 38 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Unattributed Quote, and Confirmation Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 56.5% saturation with 419 hits. Analysis detected 3,448 faulty-reasoning hits from 741 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 80% and a BS Rank of 87% (2,699 of 20,473 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 86.80% of the article peer group.
In a bit of news that we all should have seen coming, President Donald Trump is using a secret no-bid contract—that means taxpayer dollars, y’all—to build his big, dumb ballroom.
How much, you ask?
Just a wee bit, hardly worth mentioning, really: $500 million.
Honestly, this whole thing is like a greatest hits of how Trump has utterly corrupted the government.
First, the contract was routed through the office of the Executive Residence, which is exempt from competitive bidding and disclosure rules.
It’s meant for things like repairing the HVAC and buying new drapes, not tearing down the East Wing to build a monument to mammon.
Indeed, a court already ruled months ago that, no, the scope of the law allowing the Executive Residence to have no-bid contracts for minor repairs does not mean that Trump can destroy the White House and call it maintenance.
By comparison, in federal fiscal year 2022, the Executive Office of the President under the Biden administration spent about $16 million in total—an amount that was reviewed top to bottom by the Government Accountability Office.
How quaint.
Then, add the fact that Trump was personally involved in negotiating this secret no-bid contract.
Let’s all close our eyes for a moment and think of the conservative banshee howls that would happen if former president Barack Obama had intervened in government negotiations for one solitary tan suit to make sure he got his fit taken care of in secret by his favorite tailor.
When asked about this decidedly odd process, a White House official said that it was routed through the Executive Residence office because it “will be the primary support of the facility.”
Wait.
The ballroom with the snipers and the drone turret and laser beams and bulletproof glass and a top-secret military facility and a bunker and an airplane hanger and an American Doll factory is going to be run by the office that does things like buy new drapes for the Oval Office?
We had already learned earlier this month that we lucky taxpayers were on the hook for $155 million in Secret Service funds, $149 million from the White House Military Office, and $3 million from the Executive Residence being diverted to the ballroom.
But somehow, the office that paid the least toward this project also got to control the biggest secret contract and will also somehow run the facility.
Do we know if this $500 million is in addition to all of that?
NO WE DO NOT!
The contract is with Clark Construction, which we already knew was getting $200 million to build the ballroom, but that was back when we were pretending that $200 million came from donors.
Clark also got a sweet no-bid side hustle for an additional $17.4 million to repair two fountains in Lafayette Park, which was estimated to cost $3.3 million but somehow turned into five times more because it was “an unusual and compelling urgency.”
Look, if you’re a long-time—or even a short-time—Daily Kos reader, you probably knew everything about the ballroom was wrong from the jump—and also that it being funded by bribes from people seeking the favor of the president didn’t really make it any better.
But for a while, a lot of other people were able to self-soothe about how at least we weren’t paying for it.
In fact, that’s what the White House has been insisting in every court filing, with such Trumpian flourishes as: “This project is a gift to our Country from President Trump, and other Donors.
It is free of charge to the American Taxpayer.
Who could ever object to that?”
And who could forget this: “Private donors and American Patriots singlehandedly funded the 300 to 400 Million Dollar project (depending on finishes), which is on budget and ahead of schedule.
No taxpayer dollars are being used for the funding of this beautiful, desperately needed, and completely secure (for national security purposes) ballroom.”
And what was the White House response to the news that the free ballroom is actually costing taxpayers $500 million?
Well, it’s that the Executive Residence “consistently executes contracts following the law.”
Even if that were technically true—which it very much is not—that still doesn’t explain away the whole $500 million from taxpayers, now does it?
But why would Trump care?
No one who has the power to stop him is going to stop him.
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