President Donald Trump has hosted a fundraiser for his White House ballroom construction project as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go unpaid amid the ongoing government shutdown.
It’s been 15 days since Congress failed to pass a bill to keep federal agencies funded, slowing down or stopping government operations, as essential employees continue to go to work without pay.
But this dark period of partisan gridlock is not keeping the president from having a good time with those helping make his dreams of a glitzy ballroom come true.
Trump invited dozens of donors who funded the under-construction ballroom to the East Room for dinner Wednesday night. The guest list, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, included representatives from Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft. These top companies have cozied up the president, and just last month, they were represented at a White House dinner for tech leaders.
“We have a lot of legends in the room tonight, and that’s why we’re here to celebrate you because you’ve given tremendous amounts of money to see a ballroom built for the first time at the White House,” Trump told his dinner attendees.
The White House said in late July Trump and “other patriot donors” had committed $200 million to build the 90,000 square-foot ballroom.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, paid $22 million — which is expected to contribute to the ballroom construction — as part of a settlement in a 2021 lawsuit the president filed over the suspension of his YouTube account after the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6 of that year, WSJ previously reported, citing court documents.
“The White House, for 150 years-plus they’ve wanted to have a ballroom and it never happened because they’ve never had a real estate person,” Trump, who first rose to fame as a New York City developer, said Wednesday night.
The ballroom will hold 650 seated people, a big increase from the current 200-person seated capacity of the East Room. Construction for the ballroom, which will be where the East Wing currently sits, began last month.
As Trump celebrates his grand construction plans amid a government shutdown, Democrats have compared him to Marie-Antoinette, the last Queen of France, who became a symbol of selfish luxury as peasants went hungry.
“This administration’s slogan should be ‘Let them eat cake.’ Trump is busy wining and dining with his rich friends and wealthy donors while failing to make a deal to end the government shutdown,” Rosemary Boeglin, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.
Boeglin continued: “Instead of trading cash for access, Trump and his Republican loyalists in Congress should be getting back to work to reopen the government and avoid a health care crisis that would force millions of Americans to pay even more for health care or lose coverage completely.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom, known for trolling Trump online, wrote on X Wednesday night, “The government is shutdown and the President is hosting press conferences about a ballroom.”
“I didn’t know draining the swamp meant Donald Trump building a $200 million ballroom for billionaires to bend the knee for special favors,” wrote Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat.
The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.
Claire Finkelstein, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, spoke on the pressure these A-list companies and individuals may feel from the president.
“Every company that is invited to that dinner that either doesn’t show or doesn’t give knows now they will be out of favor with the Trump administration,” she told the WSJ.
To reopen the government, Democrats are demanding a reversal in Medicaid cuts laid out in Trump’s massive spending bill, which he signed in July, and an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Republicans have baselessly claimed Democrats want to give free healthcare to undocumented immigrants, despite the group not being eligible for federal healthcare programs aside from in emergencies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson warned this week, “We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history” as Republicans and Democrats remain at odds over legislation that could reopen the government.
In the meantime, at least 700,000 federal workers have been furloughed, with nearly as many continuing to work without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
