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 are 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 they 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.

The president has turned his aim against the Senate parliamentarian amid his broiling quarrel with the Republican Party.

Donald Trump publicly lashed out against Elizabeth MacDonough Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that the upper chamber’s nonpartisan adviser should be thrown out because she was appointed by a Democrat years ago, and because of her staunch opposition to including bits and pieces of the SAVE Act in budget reconciliation bills—a position she is required to take by virtue of her job.

“Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats—So why has she not been replaced?” Trump wrote. “There are many fair people who would be qualified for that vital job.

“The Republicans play a very soft game compared to the Dumocrats. It is their single biggest disadvantage in politics. The Dumocrats cheat, lie, and steal, especially when it comes to Votes in Elections, but stick together, whereas the Republicans allow the Elizabeth MacDonoughs of the World to stay in power, and brutalize us,” Trump continued.

MacDonough became the first woman to serve as Senate parliamentarian in 2012, after she was appointed by then–Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada. In his post, Trump incorrectly claimed that MacDonough was appointed by former President Barack Obama, although she was hired during his second term.

The Senate parliamentarian’s role is to advise lawmakers on both chambers’ rules and procedures, and to review spending packages for line items that the Senate cannot make good on. She is also required to oppose policy-oriented provisions in reconciliation bills, a regulation known as the “Byrd rule.”

Yet MacDonough earned the ire of the president over the weekend for doing exactly that, when she nixed the last line item in the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill: a $1 billion allowance for security funding for Trump’s White House ballroom.

She ruled that the funding provision could not be included as it violated budget reconciliation rules in its current form, an outcome that surprised no one on either side of the aisle, reported Fox News.

Trump was so irate about MacDonough’s decision, however, that he reportedly phoned Senate Majority Leader John Thune to fire her. Thune was not responsive to the request.

“We’re going through a process that we go through every time we have a reconciliation bill and the people on both sides are mad at the parliamentarian,” Thune told NOTUS Tuesday, clarifying that he would not consider firing MacDonough. “That’s been true.”

Thune’s spokesperson Ryan Wrasse said in a social media post over the weekend that the party would continue to revise the language of the legislation until it earned MacDonough’s approval. “None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process,” Wrasse wrote Saturday.

Apparently unsatisfied with Thune’s response, Trump has brought his attacks against MacDonough into broad daylight, offering up her continued employment to the court of public opinion.

In the same lengthy Truth Social post, Trump urged Republicans to “kill the filibuster” (something that the party will likely never do) and pass the SAVE Act, the voter restriction bill that was shelved earlier this month.

“If we don’t pass at least one of these two provisions quickly, you will never see another Republican President again,” Trump wrote, going on to suggest that Democrats will henceforth be able to create two additional states out of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. He also claimed that Democrats would pack the Supreme Court with as many as 21 justices and eliminate the filibuster anyway.

“Get smart and tough Republicans, or you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!” Trump concluded.

For all his bellyaching, the cost of Trump’s White House ballroom project has vastly exceeded his initial projections. Last summer, Trump told the American public that the renovation would cost $200 million and be paid for entirely by private donations. In the months since, Trump has tacked on extra construction to the site and doubled its construction expenses to $400 million.

The price tag grew to $1 billion when Republicans offered to ramp up security at the site, offering taxpayer dollars to foot the bill in the wake of another assassination attempt on the president’s life last month.

Police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are suing the Trump administration over its creation of a $1.776 billion slush fund for President Trump’s allies who claim they were unfairly targeted.

The lawsuit, filed by former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and current Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges in U.S. District Court, alleges that the fund is illegal and violates the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which states the government can’t pay debts “incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” They note that the fund could be used to pay the rioters, and also fund violent organizations.

“If allowed to begin making payments, the fund will directly finance the violent operations of rioters, paramilitaries, and their supporters who threatened plaintiffs’ lives that day, and continue to do so,” the officers’ lawyers wrote in the legal filing. “Militias like the Proud Boys will use money from the fund to arm and equip themselves. The fund will grant their [past] acts of violence legal imprimatur.”

The plaintiffs are asking for a federal judge to declare the fund unlawful, to block officials from setting it up, and to reverse any payments that have already been made. The lawsuit alleges that creating the fund also broke federal law, as the government can only settle lawsuits after the attorney general declares that such a payment “is in the interest of the United States.”

“The payment of $1.776 billion into the Anti-Weaponization Fund to settle Trump v. IRS was patently not ‘in the interest of the United States,’” the lawsuit states. “Rather, it was a misappropriation of taxpayer funds orchestrated by the President to reward his allies and the rioters who committed violence in his name.”

It will be interesting to see where this lawsuit goes, and whether it reaches the Supreme Court, which may or may not rule in favor of the president. One hopes that it would see the legal problems with a fund that the president can spend on people who break the law in his name.

Democrats are doing what they can to stop President Donald Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department and his self-serving use of taxpayer money.

On Wednesday morning, Representative Jamie Raskin, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, moved to subpoena acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and other officials involved in the creation of a $1.8 billion slush fund, which is expected to be used to pay out Trump allies who feel they were wronged by previous administrations.

The committee vote on the subpoena will be Wednesday afternoon. Republicans have the numbers to block it, though Scott MacFarlane of MeidasTouch noted that “it’s not a favorable vote politically.”

Trump’s slush fund was announced on Monday by the Department of Justice (remember when that used to be an independent body?) as part of a settlement in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. The lawsuit was filed over the president’s tax returns, which were leaked to the press by an IRS contractor in 2018 after Trump repeatedly refused to release them.

Critics and policy experts have labeled the slush fund one of the most blatantly corrupt moves the Trump administration has ever made, and Democrats seem to agree.

In addition to the subpoena, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and the Ways and Means Committee submitted a congressional inquiry to the White House on Wednesday containing 10 questions about what the hell is going on. They are similarly questioning the president’s newfound immunity from any IRS investigations into his and his family’s tax returns.

“The American people and the world just witnessed one of the most brazen acts of public corruption and self-dealing in American history,” the inquiry reads.

The president said he is in no rush to end the Iran war—and could be about to drag his own party down in the process.

One day after promising to end his Middle East conflict in “two or three days,” Donald Trump told reporters that he is in “no hurry” to make a deal with Iran.

“Everyone is saying, ‘Oh, the midterms,’” Trump said to reporters at Joint Base Andrews Wednesday. “I’m in no hurry.”

It’s a dramatically different timeline from the one Trump offered Tuesday, in which the president stated in no uncertain terms that Tehran had until Sunday to come to the negotiating table.

“I’m saying two or three days. Maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, something,” Trump said outside the White House as construction workers hammered away at his $1 billion ballroom project. “A limited period of time. Because we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon. If they had a nuclear weapon, they would start with Israel, they would blow it up and they would blow it up fast. But they would blow it up.”

“It would be nuclear holocaust,” Trump said, imagining the future if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon.

But now it seems the president is happy to take his time, a move that could hurt Republican candidates come November. The vast majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war. A New York Times/Siena poll released Monday revealed that some 64 percent of the country feels that going to war with Iran was the wrong decision, while more than half of respondents said that the war will not be worth its cost.

The war itself—which has so far lasted roughly 12 weeks—is costing the U.S. about $1 billion per day, according to early estimates by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. But Trump’s warmongering has made life more expensive for people everywhere, due to the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on several major oil and gas facilities.

The average cost of gas nationwide is $4.55 per gallon, with large swaths of the U.S. pushing $5 a gallon, according to the AAA’s price tracker. That’s about 50 percent higher than prices were before the war started.

Costs have also gone up for the rest of the world, a reality that has only aggravated U.S. alliances.

The situation has become so dire that Trump’s Cabinet members have stopped speculating as to when prices will actually go back down. Analysts, meanwhile, have projected that gas and oil costs will likely continue to climb—potentially even after midterms.

Republicans are already frustrated with Trump for backing primary candidates who openly support him, rather than candidates who are likely to perform well in a general election. If the war is still dragging on when voters head to the polls in the fall, who knows what will happen to the GOP.

Jeff Bezos is still sucking up to President Trump, even as Trump’s approval rating is at an all-time low.

In an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin Wednesday morning, the billionaire Amazon founder was asked about what he thought of President Trump’s second term amid tariffs and the war in Iran, and the tech CEO went out of his way to praise the president.

“I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term,” Bezos said. “Trump has lots of good ideas and been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due.”

“I’m on the side of America, and that’s where business leaders should be,” Bezos continued.

Earlier in the interview, Bezos was asked point-blank whether he is trying to placate Trump, citing the Melania documentary that Amazon Prime made about the first lady.

“The Melania thing is a falsehood that will not die,” Bezos said, denying that he personally had anything to do with producing the movie or that a deal was reached at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. But he still defended the documentary as a “good business decision.”

“It did very well in theaters, it’s done very well on streaming, people are very curious about Melania, so even though I had nothing to do with it, you know, it appears that the Amazon team made a very wise business decision,” Bezos said.

Amazon spent $40 million to acquire Melania and spent $35 million to market the film, and only ended up making about $16.7 million from its worldwide theatrical release. Based on those figures, it can hardly be considered a good business decision, unless the goal was to curry favor with the White House.

Bezos is ignoring Trump’s negative effect on the economy, from his arbitrary tariffs to the impact of the Iran war, because he wants to benefit from being on Trump’s good side. Americans are struggling as a result, and they’ve lost confidence in the president. But not Bezos, who has gone for broke in licking Trump’s boots. He’s shifted the newspaper that he owns, The Washington Post, further toward the right, losing thousands of subscribers, and has decimated the publication’s staff with layoffs. But none of that matters if it keeps the president from messing with your cash flow.