Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said President Donald Trump’s new $200 million ballroom in the White House will be done in a “tasteful and historical kind of a way.”

“I mean they’re not putting in a Dave and Buster’s kind of situation here,” Fetterman told Fox News on Saturday. “Upgrading some of these facilities seems pretty normal overall.”

Related: Democratic Sen. John Fetterman To Meet With Trump At Mar-A-Lago

At the end of July, the White House announced its plans to tear down the East Wing to build a new ballroom to accommodate large social events, saying it will be a 90,000-square-foot “much-needed and exquisite addition” that will seat 650 people, and be an “ornately designed and carefully crafted space” that might look similar to the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida club.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump and donors will finance the project. Renovations will begin in September, and it’s expected to be done before Trump leaves office ― however, construction has seemingly already begun because White House tours have been put on pause.

This is just the latest section of the White House to undergo a makeover. In June, the Rose Garden was covered in gravel, and portraits of Trump have been hung throughout the building.

While Fetterman said he doesn’t have any “strong opinions” on the ballroom, he said he isn’t going to “freak out” or make some “weird demands” or have a hearing on it, seemingly referring to his fellow Congresspeople calling out Trump about the ballroom.

Related: Kristi Noem’s Latest Donald Trump Boast Has Critics Howling

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a video posted on social media that the ballroom is what “DOGE is all about.”

“Cutting things, taking things away from you and not giving it to some place that needed it,” he said. “Giving it to the big shots who run the show, Donald Trump at the top of the list.”

Fetterman told Fox News that the new ballroom is “an investment” in the White House and said it won’t be done before Trump’s term is up.

Fetterman’s remarks on the ballroom were more positive than his Democratic counterparts, like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who called it a “gigantic boondoggle,” or Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who questioned Trump’s authority to remodel the White House. This year, Fetterman, who was once described as progressive, has shown more loyalty to Trump and Republicans by siding with Republicans on denying immigrants due process and voting to confirm Pam Bondi, who denied the results of the 2020 election, as head of the justice department.

https://www.aol.com/john-fetterman-says-theres-no-172848301.html

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With just over seven months to go until the midterm elections, the US-Israeli war on Iran pushing gas prices past $4 per gallon, and the rising cost of living bringing consumer confidence to an all-time low, political observers marveled on Monday at Republican senators’ decision to center President Donald Trump’s demand for a new $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House as a top legislative goal.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) held a press conference late Monday to announce their intention to expedite a bill to the Senate floor to use public funds to pay for the construction of a secure ballroom, joining Trump in insisting that a shooting at the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday proved the project is a national security priority.

Trump has demanded the construction of the ballroom for months, ordering demolition work to begin last year as he insisted the project would be paid for entirely by private donations from companies with government contracts like Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and Google — a plan that has raised alarm over significant conflicts of interest.

The construction was halted recently after a federal court ruledthe project must be approved by Congress, but an appeals court this month allowed the building to continue while it reviews the ruling.

On Monday evening, the US Department of Justice also filed a motion — which observers noted appeared to be written in the same style the president frequently uses in his social media posts — demanding that US District Judge Richard Leon dissolve his previous injunction blocking the project.

The motion started by claiming the name of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the nonprofit that sued over the ballroom construction, is “FAKE.”

“They suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly referred to as TDS,” reads the filing.

The motion started by claiming the name of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the nonprofit that sued over the ballroom construction, is “FAKE.”

“They suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly referred to as TDS,” reads the filing.

Graham said Monday that the ballroom should be paid for with $400 million in taxpayer funds collected in the form of national park fees and customs fees, with the private funding Trump secured going to extra costs like fine china.

The senator insisted the American public, whose approval of the president stood at 40% in one monthly survey in March, would support the bill.

“If you don’t think $400 million of taxpayer money is a good investment to create a secure facility at the White House, then I disagree. I bet you 90% of Americans would love to have a better facility,” said Graham.

Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation.

https://truthout.org/articles/republican-senators-push-for-400m-in-taxpayer-funds-to-build-trumps-ballroom/

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WE HATE TRUMP — BUT LOVE CHANDELIERS.... WE HOPE THAT THE ARCHITECT(S) HAS PLANNED FOR A LARGE KITCHEN THAT CAN PREPARE A TEN COURSE MEAL FOR 650 GUESTS, AS WELL AS SOME MAGA [MEGA] RESTROOMS WITH MAGNA CARTA TOILET PAPER [OR TRUMP DOLLARS SHEETS] AND ENOUGH SPACE FOR 300 [ROBOTS?] WAITERS AND 75 CHEFS WORKING THE CELEB OCCASIONS, SUCH AS THE 250th ANNIVERSARY OF BULLY "YAMERIKA"....

The latest assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump was not only a complete security failure but a product of systemic weakness that may even be deliberate, a special forces veteran of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has told RT. 

Cole Tomas Allen, a 31‑year‑old teacher from California, has been charged with trying to assassinate the US president during a dinner event at the Washington Hilton on Saturday. Allen had reportedly checked into the hotel the day before. On the day of the attack, he used an internal stairwell to get to the hotel’s terrace level where the event was held. Armed with a pump-action shotgun, a semi-automatic handgun, and three knives, Allen rushed through the metal detector frame and engaged in a gunfight with Secret Service agents. He was apprehended just a few meters from the ballroom.

Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Popov, a veteran of the FSB’s elite Alpha Group anti‑terrorism unit, has argued that the Secret Service made a number of blatant “organizational mistakes” and suggested that its repeated failures to prevent attacks on the American leader are “part of the system.”

According to Popov, such an incident would have never happened if the Security Service had followed standard security and anti-terrorism procedures and had done its due diligence ahead of the event, such as properly vetting all the hotel guests, reviewing building plans, sealing doors and ventilation, setting up proper metal detectors, and stationing additional security forces. “In a decent hotel, a person from the budget zone simply cannot physically get into the VIP zone,” he said.

In Russia, such an incident could have never taken place, Popov argued, noting that any sort of attack on the government’s top leadership could likely only be attempted by a very large organization, such as a foreign power or a major terrorist organization. 

He pointed out that even security systems in the Moscow Metro are of a much higher standard than at the Trump dinner, with metal detectors that cannot be physically bypassed and multiple security officers in high traffic areas. “Moscow can afford this, but the Hilton hotel apparently cannot,” he remarked.

Popov suggested that the Security Services’ repeated failures indicate an “organizational problem in the protection of US presidents” which is “not accidental, but part of the system.”

“There is a systematic destruction of the Secret Service which is not being allowed to develop or strengthen,”Popov said, pointing to continued underfunding of personnel, reorganization, and reshuffling based on “idiotic gender preferences.”

According to Popov, the Secret Service appears to be intentionally kept this way to allow “certain forces”to have “the possibility of physically eliminating the US president” if he “does something against their will.”

“This is not even only about Trump. This has probably been going on since Kennedy. So that the president feels, as we say, someone’s hot breath on his back if he suddenly misbehaves and does not listen to someone’s advice,” Popov suggested.

At the same time, Popov admitted that there are certain abnormalities in the latest attack on Trump, suggesting it could have been staged. He, as well as a number of keen-eyed users online, have noted the unusually calm response of some of the attendees to the gunshots and even Trump’s own demeanor during and after the incident. 

“To him, it did not seem like a surprise,” Popov said, adding that “Americans actively use such things to interrupt an information wave that is unfavorable to them at that moment.”

“We see that already in the news summary. Nobody is reading the US reports on the war on Iran. Everyone is only laughing. Iran is winning. And that, in my opinion, does not make Trump very happy.”

Popov predicted that, as with the previous assassination attempts on Trump, nobody will be held responsible for this latest incident, and that no changes will be made in the Secret Service, which must be “kept in a deprived state” to allow further attempts on presidents.

“It is part of their democracy. If they suddenly elect the wrong president, the truly democratic forces must have the ability to correct the situation by eliminating him.”

https://www.rt.com/news/639249-us-secret-service-deliberately-weak/

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGrYmg_zNEk

OH NO: The shooter WASN’T THE SHOOTER?

New evidence suggests the White House Correspondents’ Dinner suspect may not have fired shots, and the injury could be friendly fire

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Trump’s Ballroom Is a Monument to the Failure of Congress and the Supreme Court to Do Their Jobs

Austin Sarat ScheerPost

Sometimes a ballroom is more than a ballroom. In President Trump’s case, it is much more than a builder’s dream.

It is a material expression of his willingness to flout the law and disregard the Constitution. It is what authoritarianism looks like when displayed in concrete and marble.

Polls show that Americans do not share Trump’s ballroom obsession. They see the ballroom as an extravagant distraction from this country’s real problems.

Over the weekend, protesters at Trump rallies registered their feelings when they shouted: “Shove that ballroom up your a**!” But Trump is undaunted.

Just last week, the White House released a video of the ballroom construction, taken from the president’s helicopter.

We wouldn’t be having to witness the ballroom spectacle if Congress and the Supreme Court had done their jobs.

For example, at the end of August, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction that had stopped most of the ballroom’s construction. The litigation had been filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which claimed that the president’s action in tearing down the White House’s East Wing and constructing a ballroom to replace it was illegal.

The Court did not address that issue. Instead, it ruled that the National Trust for Historic Preservation did not have a right to sue because it lacked “standing.”

As the Court explained, “To secure standing to sue in federal court consistent… a plaintiff must establish that it has suffered an ‘injury in fact’—that is, the ‘invasion of a legally protected interest.’… Further, the plaintiff must demonstrate that its injury is ‘(a) concrete and particularized . . . and (b) actual or imminent.’”

Its ruling allowed the president to continue living outside the law.

As Chief Justice John Roberts noted in his dissent, “Pursuant to its plenary constitutional authority over the District of Columbia and federal property, Congress has explicitly prohibited the construction of any ‘building or structure . . . on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.’ The ballroom is a building or structure being erected on federal park grounds—President’s Park—in the District of Columbia.” 

“Yet,” Roberts continued, “Congress has not passed any law resembling ‘express authority’ for the Executive’s construction of it.” 

While some may rightly criticize the Court for allowing that to happen, the real villain of the piece is Congress for failing to defend its Constitutional prerogatives. Before explaining why, let me say more about the Court’s August 31 decision.

The Washington Post explains that “The National Trust’s case to stop Trump’s ballroom was built on a declaration by board member Alison Hoagland, a historian who lives on Capitol Hill and regularly walks by the White House. She said the scale, height and massing of the ballroom project damaged her ‘aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests’.”

To reach its preferred result, the Court had to dance around one of its own precedents. As Roberts explained, “(W)e said in one of our leading standing precedents that it was ‘[o]f course’ true that a ‘desire to . . . observe an animal species…even for purely esthetic purposes,’ was ‘undeniably a cognizable interest for purpose of standing.’”  

The majority acted as if those sentences had never been written. “This Court,” it said, “has not found standing in circumstances like these before. To the contrary, we have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury.”

Splitting hairs in a game of “which of these things is not like the other” is, of course, what lawyers and judges do. But as Roberts noted, denying standing to the National Trust for Historic Preservation allows the president to continue acting in a way that is “likely unlawful.”

But, as I’ve already argued, the primary responsibility for allowing him to get away with that really rests with Congress, not the Court.

Congress failed in two ways.

First, the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate voiced no objection to the president’s demolition and construction plan, and none of the relevant congressional committees convened hearings to hold the administration accountable. 

In fact, several Republican members of Congress have publicly supported it. Last April, following the foiled assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Politico reported that House Speaker Mike Johnson “said…the structure would be a ‘safe environment’ for events. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.)…(observed that) constructing the ballroom… ‘imperative.’ And Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) called the project ‘common sense.’”  

And when the president, who promised that the ballroom would be entirely funded by private donations, asked Congress for a billion dollars to supplement those funds, Senate Majority Leader John Thune endorsed the president’s bait and switch. “We want to make sure,” he suggested, “that any additions made down there are completed in a way that ensures that the president and others in his administration are safe and secure. I do believe there’s certainly some expectation that there would be dollars allocated for that purpose that would go above and beyond the private money that’s been raised.” 

Nary a word about the authority of Congress that Roberts highlighted or the illegality of his action. 

James Madison must be rolling over in his grave. Recall his elaborate defense of the Constitution’s system of separated powers and checks and balances among the three branches of government.

Writing in 1788, Madison argued that “the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others….Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” 

“The interest of the man,” he added, “must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.”

For the constitutional system to work, members of each branch of the government must stand up for and defend the prerogatives of the branch in which they serve. Acquiescing in President Trump’s ballroom plan is an abrogation of that duty by Republicans who control both the House and Senate.

But their failure doesn’t stop there. 

While the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s right to sue may be debatable, there is no question that Congress itself would have had standing to sue to stop construction of the ballroom. Almost thirty years ago, in 1997, the Supreme Court held that legislatures can act as “an institutional plaintiff asserting an institutional injury…after authorizing votes in both of its chambers.”

Republicans should know that. A little more than a decade ago, the House of Representatives, then controlled by the GOP, voted to sue President Obama over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The lawsuit alleged that “Sylvia Burwell, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Jacob Lew, the Secretary of the Treasury, and their respective departments …have spent billions of unappropriated dollars to support the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (and)… that Secretary Lew and Treasury have… effectively amended the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate by delaying its effect and narrowing its scope.”

The courts allowed the suit to proceed. Congress is failing the American people in many ways, but none is more consequential than standing idly by while the president ignores laws it passed and the authority granted to it by the Constitution. 

The White House ballroom will be a monument to its failure. 

https://scheerpost.com/2026/10/27/trumps-ballroom-is-a-monument-to-the-failure-of-congress-and-the-supreme-court-to-do-their-jobs/

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