By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) – U.S. Republican Senator John Kennedy on Wednesday said there was insufficient support in the Senate to spend $1 billion on a planned White House ballroom and related security measures, and that the proposal would not be included in a $72 billion immigration enforcement bill.
Speaking to reporters after leaving a meeting of Republican senators, Kennedy, of Louisiana, said: “We were told that, and again, I haven’t looked at the text, but we’re told that the ballroom money is out.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that there were “a couple snags” that his 53 Republicans were trying to iron out. “I think there are issues related to the East Wing modernization project,” he said.
President Donald Trump has had the East Wing of the White House demolished, to be replaced by a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that he says could seat up to 1,000 people.
Trump originally said the project would involve no federal funding. But that has changed several times, culminating in congressional Republicans seeking $1 billion in taxpayer money that they argued would provide security enhancements for the ballroom and other Secret Service projects.
Thune said one of the unresolved issues was whether around $780 million in additional Secret Service spending would be maintained even if the ballroom was not going forward.
While the controversy of spending federal money on what Democrats call a “gilded vanity project” for Trump has been the focus of attention in the past few weeks, the $72 billion for Department of Homeland Security immigrant deportations has also been roiling Congress as the midterm election campaigns get underway.
Democrats argue that the DHS is already well funded and have demanded new restrictions on the department’s law enforcement operations, which Republicans have rejected.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan, editing by Chris Reese and Deepa Babington)
