Republicans Forced to Abandon Latest Tactic to Fund Trump Ballroom

President Donald Trump’s proposed ballroom, which would boast lavish golden interiors and is totally needed for, uh, security reasons, is beginning to face backlash from Republicans as well as Democrats.

On Wednesday, Republican Senator John Kennedy told Samantha Handler of Punchbowl News that the GOP doesn’t have enough votes to provide $1 billion in taxpayer money to the ballroom project, and the amendment is expected to be removed from the budget bill going to the Senate floor this week.

Four Republican senators have publicly voiced opposition to public money going to the vanity project. They are Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Cassidy lost his primary last week, thanks in large part to a Trump endorsement of one of his opponents, and has also vocally spoken out against Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which was announced Monday. Collins and Murkowski are each expected to face tough Democratic challengers in the November midterms, while Tillis is retiring.

Just these four “no” votes would probably kill the $1 billion going to the ballroom given the widespread Democratic opposition to the project. A larger group inside the GOP is privately against the ballroom, according to five anonymous insiders who spoke with Politico.

The White House originally said the ballroom would be funded with approximately $200 million from Trump and “other patriot donors.” That number soon doubled to $400 million.

Senate Republicans, at the president’s behest, then attempted to sneak in a $1 billion sum for White House security—including $220 million for ballroom security—into the larger budget bill. The allotment was deemed spurious by the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian. Trump then, of course, tried to get her fired.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that President Trump has to comply with the Presidential Records Act, overruling an opinion from the Department of Justice last month.

The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion in April claiming that the act was unconstitutional because it unfairly restricted “the constitutional independence and autonomy of the Executive.” In response, two organizations, the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight and the American Historical Association sued in federal court, and on Wednesday U.S. District John Bates ruled that the act is in fact constitutional.

“The original public meaning of the text of the Constitution, canons of interpretation, Supreme Court precedent, general principles of property law, and almost 50 years of practice confirm that Congress has the enumerated power to regulate presidential records under the [Constitution’s] Property Clause,” Bates wrote in his ruling.

Bates noted that Trump had no problem following the law during his first term as president. Bates’s order takes effect on May 26. It’s not clear if the White House is following the law at the moment, and it will likely appeal the ruling to a higher court, as Trump has shown little respect for recorded documents during his presidency.

Trump was charged with hoarding classified documents in his Florida estate in a case that was eventually dismissed thanks to a judge he appointed. In his first term as president, Trump also reportedly used to tear documents into small pieces and throw them on the floor. Trump doesn’t plan to keep any documents at his proposed presidential library, instead planning to make the Miami skyscraper more like a hotel as he doesn’t “believe in building libraries or museums.”

Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will require U.S. banks to take a closer look at their clients’ citizenship details.

The Tuesday order, titled “Restoring Integrity to America’s Financial System,” directs bank regulators and the government agencies to look into the legal status of people applying for credit cards or loans or opening bank accounts.

“My Administration will not tolerate national security and public safety risks caused by illicit cross-border financial activity, nor will it permit risks to our financial system posed by the extension of credit or financial services to the inadmissible and removable alien population,” the order states.

The White House wrote that America’s financial institutions should “be attentive” to the potential credit risks posed by extending loans to undocumented immigrants, specifying that that situation creates a “structural ‘ability to repay’ deficiency that undermines the safety and soundness of the national banking system” in the event that those individuals are deported.

Exactly how much risk these individuals pose is unknown, since banks have never collected information about their customers’ citizenship or immigration status, reported the Associated Press.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is expected to issue a formal advisory on the new regulations within the next 60 days that will specifically describe certain “red flags and typologies” employers are to be suspicious of, such as potential payroll tax evasion, the use of “foreign-identity documents,” the use of an individual taxpayer identification number (a code typically used by undocumented immigrants in place of a Social Security number), or the use of third-party payment processors that the order claimed could be indicative of “off-the-books” wage payments.

Somehow, the order was less severe than bank executives expected. Early reports on the executive order suggested that the White House was weighing whether to make it mandatory for financial institutions to collect their customers’ citizenship data.

Democrats are moving quickly to force congressional votes on President Donald Trump’s ridiculously corrupt slush fund.

After Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS resulted in the creation of a $1.8 billion pool of taxpayer money for him to essentially dole out to his allies at a whim, Democrats want to force Republicans to go on the record about whether they support such blatant fraud.

In the House, Representative John Larson has announced what Democrats are literally calling the SLUSH FUND Act, which would tax the fund at 100 percent, returning every dollar back to the government.

“The President should be focused on public service, not personal gain and profit,” Larson wrote in a press release. “Never in our nation’s history has a sitting president sought a settlement against their own government. Hardworking American taxpayers should not have to write blank checks to Trump, his cronies, and violent January 6th insurrectionists who attacked our Capitol.”

Jamie Raskin, a ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told The New Republic that he plans to submit another bill to block the slush fund and any future efforts to create similar pools of money.

“We need to put Republicans on the spot as to whether or not they are going to endorse this rank corruption, or whether they are going to stand up for basic constitutional values,” Raskin said, adding that he wants “straightforward legislation to block this outrageous misappropriation.”

Earlier Wednesday, Raskin moved to subpoena acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and other members of Trump’s Cabinet involved in the creation of the fund.

Raskin said his proposed bill will be backed by the entire Democratic caucus and that Democrats will seek a discharge petition to force a vote on it. Discharge petitions require majority approval from the House, so this plan may not work unless a few Republicans also vote to bring the bill to the floor. The New Republic can think of at least one GOP House member Dems can count on …

Not to be outdone, Senate Democrats are also planning to force votes on the slush fund as a budget bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security hits the floor in the coming days. Republicans are using the reconciliation process to try to approve the budget, which means Democrats can propose slush fund–related amendments that will automatically go to a vote.

For example, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has said he will introduce a provision that prevents money in the fund from going to child sex offenders or those found guilty of assaulting police officers. “It’s time to see where Republicans stand,” he said.

The U.S. government indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro in federal court Wednesday for his alleged role in shooting down planes belonging to Cuban exiles in 1996.

Castro, 94, and five others were charged in Miami with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of destruction of aircraft related to when the Cuban military shot down planes over the Florida Straits on a humanitarian mission to find refugees trying to escape Cuba, killing four people. Castro is accused of giving the order to fire.

The planes belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, a group founded by Cuban exiles that searched for Cubans fleeing the island in rafts. Three of the people killed were U.S. citizens, while one was a U.S. permanent resident.

“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press conference in Miami Wednesday. “My message today is clear: The United States and President Trump does not and will not forget its citizens.”

The indictment appears to be part of the Trump administration’s growing pressure campaign to force regime change in the country.

“This isn’t a show indictment,” Blanche stressed when announcing the news. “There is a warrant for his arrest. We expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked the U.S.’s January capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro when discussing Cuba, raising the possibility of Castro meeting the same fate. At the time, Rubio said, “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned, at least a little bit.”

For months, the U.S. has blocked oil shipments from arriving into Cuba, resulting in electricity blackouts across the country and protests in the capital, Havana. Earlier on Wednesday, Rubio posted a video message in Spanish addressed to the Cuban people.

“The reason you are forced to survive without electricity is not due to an oil blockade by America,” Rubio said, instead blaming the Cuban government for plundering “billions of dollars” and preventing electricity, food, and fuel from reaching the Cuban people.

Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs replied in his own post on X, saying, “The reason why the U.S. Secretary of State lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously when referring to Cuba and trying to justify the aggression to which he subjects the Cuban people is not ignorance or incompetence. He knows full well that there is no excuse for such a cruel and ruthless aggression.”

This story has been updated.