Senate

GOP includes $1B for Trump White House ballroom security in budget bill

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by Ryan Mancini - 05/05/26 3:50 PM ET

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by Ryan Mancini - 05/05/26 3:50 PM ET

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The Senate Judiciary Committee late on Monday added $1 billion to a spending package for the U.S. Secret Service to allow for security upgrades to the compound tied to the construction of the White House ballroom.

The $1 billion makes up part of a $72 billion budget reconciliation bill released by the Judiciary panel and the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The bill’s text does not specifically say the $1 billion will go to the ballroom, but that it will go toward “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 committees released the bill after the Senate and House passed a joint budget resolution last month unlocking the special budget reconciliation process to ensure they could move forward with funding for federal immigration enforcement amid the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

These funds cannot be used for any non-security elements of the ballroom and nearby attached facilities, according to the legislation.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Politico that the legislative branch “has rightly recognized the needs for these funds.”

“The White House applauds Congress’s latest proposal in its reconciliation package which includes additional funding for security infrastructure upgrades in relation to the long overdue East Wing Modernization Project,” Ingle told the outlet in a statement.

Democrats tore into the bill, which also called for $30.73 billion for hiring, paying, training and equipping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel, including officers, agents, investigators, attorneys and support staff through fiscal 2029. Democratic lawmakers have held up funding amid their calls for reforms to ICE and U.S. Border Patrol.

“Republicans won’t allow our country to be dragged backwards by Democrats’ radical, anti-law enforcement agenda,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement about the reconciliation package.

Grassley added that the committee “is taking action to help provide certainty for federal law enforcement and safer streets for American families. We will work to ensure this critical funding gets signed into law without unnecessary delay.”

President Trump and GOP lawmakers have made the administration’s push for a ballroom to emphasize the need for additional security following the attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month. Democrats have called out the push for the ballroom as out of touch with most Americans struggling with affordability.

“Republicans are on a different planet than American families,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote on the social platform X. “Republicans looked at families drowning in bills and decided what they really needed was more raids and a Trump ballroom.”

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