Senate GOP looking for off-ramp from White House ballroom debacle
by Alexander Bolton - 05/18/26 6:00 AM ET
The Senate is gearing up for a battle over funding President Trump’s White House ballroom, which will take center stage when senators debate a budget reconciliation package this week to fund immigration enforcement operations through 2029.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough dealt a major setback to Republicans on Saturday by ruling that their plan to provide hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for Trump’s ballroom violated the Senate’s Byrd Rule and could not pass the Senate with a simple majority.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) hailed the parliamentarian’s guidance as a big victory but Senate Republicans are not about to quit on one of Trump’s biggest priorities. GOP leaders are revising the language so that it can avoid a 60-vote threshold on the floor, setting up a likely showdown when senators start voting on the bill Thursday.
“Redraft. Refine. Resubmit. None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process,” Ryan Wrasse, a senior aide to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) posted on social media in response to the parliamentarian’s ruling.
Senate Democrats say they will try to knock any provision that could funnel taxpayer funding to the ballroom project if Republicans rewrite it.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5880813-senate-battle-trump-ballroom-funding/
