The grand ballroom being built by President Trump on the White House grounds could cost about $600 million, with more than half of that coming from public funds, according to estimates reported Tuesday by The Washington Post.
The numbers, which come from a detailed project summary prepared in March by the main contractor on the project, contradict Trump’s repeated claims that the ballroom would be privately funded, as well as his estimates of the total cost.
“It’s going to cost nothing,” Trump said in February 2025, soon after entering the White House for the second time. “I will spend the whole thing myself.”
The president later said that private donors would join him in funding the project. Announcing that construction would soon begin, the White House said in July 2025 that the ballroom would cost $200 million, with the bill paid by “President Trump, and other patriot donors.”
By March of this year, the cost cited by Trump had doubled to $400 million, but the pledge that the project would be privately funded remained in place. “This is taxpayer-free,” Trump told reporters on March 31. “We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents.”
A much larger number: The internal documents obtained by the Post tell a different story. Clark Construction, the contractor in the ballroom project, reportedly told the White House in March that the estimated cost had risen to $600 million. Of that, $293 million was described in a project summary as coming from “private sources.” The other $307 million would come from publicly funded sources: the Secret Service ($155 million), the White House Military Office ($149 million) and the Executive Residence ($3 million).
Adding security: After an assassination attempt on Trump in a Washington hotel in April, the White House started to claim that the ballroom is essential for national security. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced legislation that would provide $400 million for security enhancements for the ballroom project, including extensive underground features. Republicans then sought to add $1 billion for the Secret Service to their $70 billion reconciliation bill, with some of the funds to be used for security. But the Senate parliamentarian ruled against the funding on technical grounds, and Republicans, facing stiff opposition from Democrats and no small degree of skepticism from the public, dropped the issue.
Republicans have cited the security elements to justify the use of substantial public funding for the project, but critics have charged that the White House has sought to blur the line between the privately and publicly funded elements. A federal judge who has ruled that the ballroom needs congressional authorization described the mix of private and public funding involved in the project as a “Rube Goldberg” device designed to avoid oversight by Congress.
According to the documents seen by the Post, the White House sought to emphasize the security elements of the project, even for activities such as site preparation, which was to be paid for in part with $3.6 million in Secret Service funding. A White House lawyer said in an email that she had tweaked the language in the contract “to tie the project more closely to security-related issues since [U.S. Secret Service] is providing the funding.” Another $1.6 million in Secret Service funding was earmarked for the demolition of the White House East Wing in October 2025.
The Post spoke to a federal contracting expert who questioned the connection between building demolition and the congressionally funded role of the Secret Service. “That is a stretch,” the former federal official said. “How is that something Secret Service should do and fund?”
Will Republicans continue to support? Trump’s supporters in Congress have defended the ballroom, frequently citing the claim that no public funds would be involved in the project. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been a notably enthusiastic supporter. “President Trump's going to add the greatest improvement to the White House in the history of the building since it was originally constructed in 1800,” he said last October. “The ballroom is going to be glorious. ... This is for the American people. And he's using private funds to do it. How in the world could they oppose that?”
Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who leads the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has also spoken glowingly about what he has claimed is a privately funded project. “The ballroom is gonna be paid for with private money. To me, that's a win,” he told News Nation in April.
Some Trump supporters have framed the discussion about the ballroom funding in distinctly Trumpian terms. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who sits on the Budget Committee, criticized the “FAKE NEWS media” for “once again twisting the facts and pushing a completely FALSE narrative about White House ballroom funding!!” In a statement last month, Norman insisted that the “brick-and-mortar construction is being privately funded by President Trump and private donors — NOT taxpayers.”
Norman also accused the media of acting “as if this is some selfish vanity project,” while firmly declaring, “It’s NOT!!”
Democrat claims corruption: Whatever approach Republicans take, Democrats have been given new ammunition to use in their battle against the ballroom. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the Post report shows that Trump is running the “most corrupt administration in American history.”
“American families cannot afford food, gas, healthcare or rent. Instead of doing anything to provide relief, President Trump spent tens of millions of your tax dollars on his ballroom vanity project and then lied about it,” she said Tuesday. “According to this report, the administration committed months ago to spending at least $300 million of taxpayers’ money on the ballroom vanity project and they have been lying about it since. While families struggle to afford basic necessities, the only things the Trump administration can provide are slush funds for criminals, fistfights on the South Lawn, and ballrooms for billionaires.”