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chairman donald trump has hosted a fundraiser for them White House Ballroom Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are not getting salaries amid construction project ongoing government shutdown,
It has been 15 days for Congress fail to pass a bill To keep federal agencies funded, slowing or stopping government operations as essential workers go to work without pay.
But this dark period of partisan gridlock isn’t stopping the president from spending quality time with the people who are helping make his dream of a glittering ballroom come true.
Trump invited dozens of donors who are funding the ballroom under construction to the East Room for dinner Wednesday night. Guest list, obtained by wall street journalRepresentatives from Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft were involved. These top companies have welcomed the President, and just last month, they were represented at a White House dinner for tech leaders.
“We have a lot of greats in the room tonight, and that’s why we’re here to celebrate you because you’ve given a tremendous amount of money to see the ballroom built for the first time in the White House,” Trump told his dinner attendees.
The White House said in late July that Trump and “other patriotic donors” had pledged $200 million toward construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, paid $22 million – which is expected to contribute to the ballroom construction – as part of a settlement in a 2021 lawsuit the president filed over the suspension of his YouTube account following the US Capitol riot on January 6 that year. WSJ before this The report cited court documents.
“The White House has wanted a ballroom for over 150 years and it never happened because they never had a real estate person,” said Trump, who first rose to fame as a new york city The developer, said on Wednesday night.
The ballroom will have a seating capacity of 650, a large increase from the East Room’s current seating capacity of 200. Construction of the ballroom, where the east wing is currently located, began the previous month.
As Trump celebrated his grand construction plans amid the government shutdown, Democrats compared him to Marie-Antoinette, France’s last queen, who became a symbol of selfish luxury as farmers starved.
“The slogan of this administration should be ‘Let them eat cake.’ Rosemary Boeglin, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement that Trump has been busy wining and dining with his wealthy friends and wealthy donors while failing to reach a deal to end the government shutdown.
Boeglin added: “Instead of trading cash for access, Trump and his Republican loyalists in Congress should get back to work reopening the government and avoiding a health care crisis that would force millions of Americans to pay even more for health care or lose coverage altogether.”
Governor of California Gavin NewsomKnown for trolling Trump online wrote X On Wednesday night, “The government is shut down and the president is hosting a press conference about a ballroom.”
“I didn’t know that draining the swamp meant Donald Trump building a $200 million ballroom for billionaires to kneel down for special favors.” wrote Senator Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat.
Independent The White House has been contacted for comment.
Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, spoke to the pressure these A-list companies and individuals feel from the president.
“Every company that gets invited to that dinner that either doesn’t show up or doesn’t pay knows that they are now going to fall out of favor with the Trump administration,” he said. WSJ,
To reopen the government, Democrats are seeking to reverse Medicaid cuts set in Trump’s massive spending bill, which he signed in July, and expand Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Republicans have made baseless claims that Democrats want to give free health care to undocumented immigrants, despite the group not being eligible for federal health care programs except in emergencies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson warned this week“We’re headed toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history” as Republicans and Democrats remain at odds over legislation that could reopen the government.
Meanwhile, at least 700,000 federal workers have been furloughed, and nearly the same number are continuing to work without pay. Bipartisan Policy Center,