Tracking Trump’s White House ballroom promises on taxpayer costs and more

President Donald Trump’s pitch for his White House ballroom project has been anchored in a repeated promise to Americans: They won’t have to pay for it.

But internal contractor estimates reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday show taxpayers were projected to cover half of a price tag that had swelled to $600 million by March.

Trump has at times said the Secret Service and the military would contribute security enhancements, without elaborating on the price of those upgrades or the source of their funding.

Here’s a look at what Trump and his administration have said over the past year about who would pay for the ballroom project.

Trump announced in a Truth Social post that he had just finished inspecting the site of a “new Ballroom … at the White House.” He said the new building will be “compliments of a man known as Donald Trump.”

The White House formally announced the ballroom project at a news conference. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the building would span about 90,000 square feet, seat 650 and cost $200 million.

“President Trump and other donors have generously committed to donating the funds necessary to build this approximately $200 million structure,” Leavitt said. “The United States Secret Service will provide the necessary security enhancements and modifications.”

Later that afternoon, Trump committed to spending no public money, saying he and “other patriot donors” would fund it.

“No government to help us,” he said during an Oval Office news conference.

The Post broke the news that the White House had begun a sudden, unexpected demolition of the East Wing, despite Trump’s promises that the project would not touch the annex. Over the next three days, demolition crews reduced the East Wing to rubble.

Trump announced in a Truth Social post “that ground has been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom.” He renewed his pledge to do so “with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!”

“The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly,” he said.

Trump publicly raised the project’s total cost to $300 million, a 50% increase. Taking questions in the Oval Office, the president said the military was closely involved in the project, but added that it would be paid for “100% by me and some friends of mine.”

Trump said during a news conference that private donors had given about $350 million for the project and that he had personally pledged to contribute “millions of dollars” and to close any shortfall. “I’ll donate whatever is needed,” he said.

Trump told reporters that “not one penny is being used from the federal government,” describing the donors as “all private individuals that put up a lot of money to build the ballroom.”

Trump said the estimated cost had risen to $400 million but maintained that he and other private donors would pay. Despite the 50% increase from his previous public estimate, Trump predicted the project would come in under budget.

“We’re donating a building that’s approximately $400 million,” he told guests at a Hanukkah reception. “I think I’ll do it for less. … I should do it for less. I will do it for less.”

Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Will be the Greatest Ballroom ever built, now rising at the site of the White House — Fully paid for by American Patriot Donors. ZERO cost to our United States Taxpayers!”

In a lawsuit aimed at halting the project, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that work on it could continue, prompting Trump to post on Truth Social.

“The Judge on the case of what will be the most beautiful Ballroom anywhere in the World, has just thrown out, and completely erased, the effort to stop its construction. As everyone knows, not one dollar of Taxpayer money is being spent, but rather, all money necessary to build this magnificent building is being put up by Patriot Donors and Contributors.”

After more arguments in the case, Leon ruled Trump lacked the authority to unilaterally authorize the ballroom’s construction and needed Congress to approve it. He ordered the White House to halt work within two weeks, making an exception for the underground park of the project.

Trump blasted the decision while in the Oval Office, citing the project’s lack of public funding.

“We didn’t ask for any tax money. We have no tax — this is taxpayer-free,” he told reporters. “We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents.”

In a court filing that echoed Trump’s Truth Social posts, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate asked an appellate court to delay Leon’s order from taking effect. Shumate said donors had given nearly $400 million, and that “No taxpayer dollars are being used to build this long sought, and desperately needed, ballroom!”

Private donations had already been spent on or committed to “heavy, large scale, and other types of building materials,” he wrote, before listing security-related parts of the project.

Shumate’s examples included “protective missile resistant steel columns … drone proof roofing materials, and bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass.” He then listed “bomb shelters, hospital and medical area, protective partitioning, and Top Secret Military installations, structures, and equipment.”

Leon, the federal judge, reaffirmed his ruling from two weeks earlier and once again ordered the Trump administration to halt construction of the aboveground portion of the ballroom. Trump responded with a flurry of social media posts blasting the judge, “who doesn’t want to accept a $400 Million Dollar GIFT of one of the most beautiful Ballrooms anywhere in the World.”

In 10 Truth Social posts, Trump repeatedly asserted the project wouldn’t use public funds, stressing in one post that the ballroom was “being built as a GIFT to America (without Tax Dollars!).”

“A Trump Hating Judge, for the first time in History, wants Congress to pay Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for a Glorious Ballroom, instead of accepting Donations from Great American Companies and Citizens,” he wrote in one post. “ … In other words, he wants Tax Payers to pay for the Ballroom, instead of Donors and Patriots!

“The Ballroom is FREE to our Country, A GIFT, and vital for our National Security.”

Trump was evacuated after a shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner at the Washington Hilton. Hours later, he said the hotel was “not a particularly secure building” and said it highlighted the need for his planned ballroom. Several Republican lawmakers and conservative pundits joined him in using the shooting to press the case.

The shooting “would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” he said the following morning in a Truth Social post. “It cannot be built fast enough!”

Trump gave reporters a tour of the ballroom construction site as Congress considered legislation authorizing $1 billion in White House security funding, including security-related improvements to the ballroom. He began distinguishing between different parts of the project and saying only part of it would be privately funded.

“The government would pay for part of the construction work on the new East Wing,” he said, characterizing the work as going “toward the security of that and the whole White House premises.”

“They have a budget in the Secret Service and the military to do some of the work that you see right here,” Trump said. The ballroom itself “is not going to be paid for by the taxpayer, he added. “This is a gift to the United States of America.”

Trump spoke of the proposed congressional funding, once again distinguishing between the ballroom — which he described as a gift that was already paid for — and the security improvements tied to it.

“The money that they’re spending is for security having to do maybe around the ballroom and other parts of the house,” Trump said of Congress. “But this is not for the ballroom.”

Trump showed his daughter-in-law Lara Trump around the White House during an interview, at one point directing her attention out an East Room window to the ballroom site below. He did not mention that officials expected taxpayers to pay for the vast majority of the work that had been done up to that point — and more than half of what was, by March, a $600 million project, according to internal project estimates.

“It will be the greatest facility of its kind ever built by far,” Trump told her, adding: “It’s a gift from me and from great patriots that, you know, it’s going to cost the country nothing.”

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• Sarah Blaskey and Jonathan O’Connell contributed reporting.