Trump vents at Thune over ballroom funding setback
Donald Trump privately complained to senate Majority Leader John Thune after a Senate parliamentarian ruling put at risk millions in security funding tied to Trump’s East Wing ballroom. Reported by *Semafor* and confirmed by a source, the call highlights renewed tensions as Democrats try to strip those dollars from an immigration enforcement bill expected to reach a Senate vote soon.
Republicans are planning to rewrite the language to meet reconciliation rules, which require the provisions have a budgetary impact and fall within committee jurisdiction. The setback recalls earlier fights involving parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, whom Trump and conservatives had urged Thune to remove after she ruled against parts of a prior GOP tax measure.
Democrats have already challenged $1 billion in Secret service-related funding and plan to do so again after Republicans submit updated text.About $220 million of the figure is earmarked for hardening the East Wing complex, even as Trump has said he would use private funds for the expansion, prompting criticism from Democrats and some internal GOP concerns about the cost.
President Donald Trump used a Monday phone call with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to complain about a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian that has jeopardized millions in security dollars for his East Wing ballroom.
The phone call, reported by Semafor and confirmed by a source familiar with the conversation, represents the latest flash of frustration as Democrats attempt to strip the money from an immigration enforcement bill that will get a Senate vote before the end of the week.
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Republicans plan to rework the language to comply with the strict rules of reconciliation, a budget process that lets them skirt the filibuster, but the ruling has reopened wounds that predate the current spending fight.
Last year, Thune rejected conservative calls to fire Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough after she ruled against portions of Republicans’ GOP tax law, and Trump himself asked Thune to remove her on Monday, according to NOTUS. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Under Democratic control, MacDonough has ruled against language on the minimum wage and other liberal priorities.
Democrats successfully challenged the $1 billion in Secret Service funding on Saturday and will attempt to do so again when Republicans submit their updated text. Of that amount, around $220 million is earmarked for “hardening” the East Wing complex. The funding is part of a $70 billion bill to reopen Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its sister agency, Customs and Border Protection.
Thune downplayed the setback as a normal part of reconciliation, which requires that all language have a budgetary impact and fit within the jurisdiction of committees drafting the text.
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“It is an iterative process, it’s a back and forth, and we, like on many issues, have multiple plans and ideas and contingencies for how she may or may not rule,” Thune said of MacDonough on Monday. “It’s a give and take, and you take what she suggests or take her opinions, and then try and come up with a different way of getting it done.”
The president has promised to use private funds to pay for the East Wing expansion, but Republicans’ inclusion of the security dollars has fanned Democrats’ criticism of the ballroom as an elaborate vanity project. A sizable number of Republicans have expressed concern about the price tag of that addition in the face of those attacks.
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