Free Republic

Cracks may be starting to appear in Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s 2028 White House bid, a lawsuit provided to On The Money shows. **SNIP** Yet if any of the allegations in the whistleblower lawsuit I just reviewed are even partly true — and yes they are just allegations — there are questions whether Shapiro is ready for the primetime political proctology exam he will experience if he does run in 2028. The suit doesn’t name Shapiro as a defendant but he looms large in the litigation that takes aim at the state and agencies where the alleged whistleblower worked. Filed...

WASHINGTON — President Trump said he dined Thursday night with comedian Bill Maher, musician Kid Rock and sports commentator Stephen A. Smith. “I think they had a good time. We talked about everything, it lasted a long time,” Trump told reporters Friday as he left the White House for a campaign trip to Georgia. “Even though they have to sort of put on a certain little facade for their people, they like Trump, and I actually like them. We had a great time.” “We even took a little tour of the ballroom. We went inside the ballroom with beams that...

What is the progress of the White House Ballroom? I tried to look it up with google (cough) and while it said "As of August 2026, construction of the new White House ballroom is reported as roughly 65% complete, the only pictures that the internet shows are of the demolition at the site. Hasn't something (65%) been built by now? Could someone please post some pictures?

President Donald Trump declared that the White House was a “dump” before he began renovating it, accusing his presidential predecessors of neglecting the historic building and claiming his work has left it “in better shape than when built in 1792.” The president offered the take on Sunday night while posting before-and-after photographs of restoration work at the executive mansion, which has undergone a sweeping and ambitious overhaul during his second term. “The White House was in very bad condition, both inside and out. Frankly, it was a “dump!” Past Presidents did not take care of it. I love renovating it...

Democratic Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego appeared on CNN this morning and said the next Democratic President should destroy all remnants of Trump, including the beautification of Washington, DC, once he leaves the White House. Trump has undertaken various projects to beautify DC, including cleaning the vandalism and restoring statues and monuments across the city, fixing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and building a White House Ballroom and a "Triumphal Arch." The Department of the Interior is preparing to break ground on the Arch on Columbia Island, where it will overlook the Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial across the...

The construction of a massive White House ballroom is moving full steam ahead after the Supreme Court found a historic preservation group likely had no right to stop it. "We have a lot of very happy construction workers," President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The $400 million project on the site of the former East Wing, he said, was "under budget and ahead of schedule." * * * The Supreme Court's majority held in the ballroom case that one member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "mere offense, disagreement, or distaste" was not enough to...

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner had some words Tuesday for President Donald Trump's White House ballroom at the annual slavery commiseration at the President's House in Old City. The 24th annual commiseration occurred as city leaders and advocates continue to fight a legal battle to get an exhibit on slavery at the site restored after the Trump administration replaced panels at the exhibit. Krasner, who was one of the speakers at the event, said that President Donald Trump is a "pain in the ass" and an "embodiment of hate, the embodiment of ignorance and the embodiment of depriving people of...

President Trump touted progress on the White House ballroom project on Saturday morning, a day after the Supreme Court temporarily permitted construction work to continue. “Tremendous work has been done on the magnificent BALLROOM/MILITARY COMPLEX being built on the grounds of the White House!” the president wrote on Truth Social, alongside a photo of the construction site. The ballroom project has faced a series of litigation and public scrutiny over reports that the Trump administration planned to use money appropriated by Congress to other agencies. Trump had previously told reporters that private donors would cover the $400 million construction project...

Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily allowed construction of the White House ballroom to continue, freezing for now a lower court decision that would have halted work on the project. Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stay that will remain in place until the Supreme Court takes further action. His order is temporary and gives the high court additional time to consider the Justice Department's request to pause a district court's injunction, which was set to take effect at midnight unless the Supreme Court acted.

WASHINGTON—President Trump’s half-built White House ballroom is a 90,000-square-foot embodiment of a recurring legal conundrum: What happens when a boundary-pushing president moves faster than courts can keep up? The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to allow Trump to continue building the $400 million project. But he and his administration’s lawyers have told the justices that they have no real choice at all. Construction of the “concrete-and-steel superstructure,” they say, has already advanced so far that it would be “practically impossible” to stop now, let alone tear down what has already been built.

Matthew Taylor, a conceptual artist and political strategist, made influential ads and documentaries produced by Steve Bannon. Now he’s assisting the White House.Matthew Taylor officially holds one role in the Trump administration as a senior adviser at the National Endowment for the Humanities, but he has quietly become a key player behind many of the president’s bold initiatives to transform Washington and its cultural legacy.This year, Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Taylor to the Commission of Fine Arts, a federal agency that reviews government construction in Washington, to rubber-stamp approvals for projects such as the White House ballroom and the world’s...

Records show the price tag for the White House ballroom is rising to $600 million, with half of the costs funded by taxpayer dollars, according to a new report from The Washington Post. The news comes months after President Trump said private donors would pay for the $400 million initiative to construct a new ballroom in place of the East Wing. At the end of March, Trump told reporters “We’re donating a building that’s approximately $400 million.”

https://x.com/amuse/status/2038599107544007023 @amuse @amuse·3h DRIVE-BY MEDIA: The New York Times hired a new infographic team to criticize everything. The latest example is the new White House ballroom. I like John’s satirical critique of a US carrier. h/t @johnkonrad ransomnote: click image to view full size March 30, 2026 ransomnote: The ballroom image is attributed to the New York Times so I won't post the full image here. But the aircraft carrier has no attribution.

Six Republicans joined with Democrats on Thursday to support a measure that would block the construction of President Donald Trump's planned White House ballroom. The measure needed 60 votes to pass and came as part of a string of amendment votes ahead of the main vote on a reconciliation bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. The final vote was 52-47 in favor, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John Husted of Ohio, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voting to block construction,...

A remarkable two-month sprint higher for the major U.S. stock-market indexes encountered its first major hiccup on Friday, as the Nasdaq Composite plummeted more than 1,121 points — its biggest one-day point drop on record, according to Dow Jones Market Data. That translated to a 4.2% decline for the Nasdaq, the biggest in percentage-point terms since April 10, 2025, data showed. A 2.6% drop for the S&P 500 on Friday was its worst since Oct. 10.

The Senate on Thursday voted on a proposal to block the construction of President Trump’s 90,000 square foot ballroom.The proposal, which needed 60 votes, failed 52-47.However, SIX Republican Senators voted with the Democrats to block the construction of the ballroom: Collins, Husted, Moran, Murkowski, Sullivan and Tillis.The proposal was introduced by Democrat Senator Jeff Merkley during Thursday’s vote-a-rama.

President Trump posted several mock-up images of the “drone port” he hopes to build at the top of the proposed White House ballroom over the weekend — while taking a jab at the judge who is trying to delay construction. “The DronePort at the White House Ballroom will be, perhaps, the most sophisticated anywhere in the World!” Trump boasted on Truth Social. “It will safeguard our Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C., long into the future. “Judge Richard Leon should stop playing games with America’s Security! If anything happens, he will be held responsible for the Death and Destruction caused to our...

LMFAO!! Trump just went off on a reporter! "You're a STUPID person, and you happen to be!" REPORTER: "You promised to bring inflation down. It's now at its highest level in three years. Are your policies not working? What's happening?" TRUMP: "If you go back to just before the war, for the last three months, inflation was at 1.7%. Now, we had a choice. Let these LUNATICS have a nuclear weapon. If you want to do that, then you're a STUPID person, and you happen to be!"

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is rallying fellow Democrats in a new “Dear Colleague” letter for a battle royale on the Senate floor over $1 billion in proposed funding for President Trump’s 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom that’s tucked into a $72 billion Republican-drafted budget reconciliation package. Schumer is planning to turn the Senate floor debate and marathon voting session on the reconciliation bill into a referendum on lowering costs and scrapping the earmark for the ballroom. “At a time when Americans can’t make ends meet, Republicans say ‘Let them eat cake’ — and then hand Trump a billion dollars...

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans are seeking to give $1 billion in taxpayer funding to the Secret Service this year for security upgrades, including the White House ballroom. President Donald Trump has said private donations would ​pay for the estimated $400 million ballroom project. The funding package text does not say how much of the new Secret Service funds will pay for the ballroom. The proposed infusion of Secret Service funds was released late Monday as part of a nearly $72 billion package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through 2029 on...