Charisma Madarang
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President Donald Trump holds up photos of the new White House ballroom in Washington, DC on Oct. 22, 2025. Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images Senate Republicans have proposed setting aside $1 billion this year in taxpayer funding for security upgrades to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project. The push for legislation to secure the ballroom arrives after a man was charged with attempting to assassinate the president at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last week.
The legislation states that the money would be used “for the purposes of security adjustments and upgrades, including within the perimeter fence of the White House Compound to support enhancements by the United States Secret Service relating to the East Wing Modernization Project, including above-ground and below-ground security features.”
The addition of $1 billion for Secret Service funds is part of a nearly $72 billion package aimed at funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through 2029.
Trump has previously told Americans that the ballroom’s construction would cost $400 million and be “free of charge,” emphasizing that it would be funded by private donors. “I’m paying for it; the country’s not,” the president said in September, per CNN. In October, Trump said that that the ballroom would be paid for “100 percent by me and some friends of mine.”
