Twelve hours after a gunman tried to attack Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, President Donald Trump used the incident as justification to build his $400 million, 90,000 square-foot ballroom.“What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE,” Trump wrote on Sunday. NBC News characterized the claim as “without evidence.” “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!” Trump added. According to Bloomberg News, even at 90,000 square feet, the proposed ballroom would not be large enough to seat the dinner’s two thousand guests. Nor is the dinner a White House function — it is a private event.Trump has been “frustrated” by legal challenges to his ballroom project, Bloomberg added. From the start, the president maintained the ballroom would not cost taxpayers a dime, but rather, be privately funded by “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly,” as the Associated Press reported last year.Now, according to Bloomberg, Trump allies are pushing for federal taxpayer funds to be used to pay for the ballroom.“Key Republican senators are pushing to use federal funds for the construction of the White House ballroom President Donald Trump has planned, citing increased threats following Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner,” Bloomberg notes.The lawmakers calling to use taxpayer funds for Trump’s ballroom include U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO). They “plan to try to attach funding for the ballroom to a federal spending bill.”“I will be introducing standalone legislation tomorrow to authorize and appropriate money to fully fund the White House presidential ballroom,” Graham wrote on Sunday, “which over time will provide adequate security for this president and future presidents for events like the White House Correspondents Dinner.”Punchbowl News’ Laura Weiss reports Senators Graham and Britt are holding a press conference Monday night for their bill to fund the ballroom.
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