WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday defended a proposal to give the Secret Service up to $1 billion for security upgrades to President Donald Trump’s East Wing ballroom project, attaching the funding to a partisan spending bill over the strong objections of Democrats and amid growing skepticism from some of their own members.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., cast the funding as essential protection for the president.
“Keeping the leader of the free world safe is an expensive proposition,” Thune said. “The Secret Service has a job to defend and protect the president, and we need to make sure they have the tools to do it.”
Democrats, who have blocked funding for immigration enforcement agencies since February, were quick to frame the ballroom funding as a breach of Trump’s earlier pledges.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, in a letter to colleagues Monday, urged Republicans to strip the money. “Well, give me a break. He’s put a billion dollars in the budget for it. This staggering waste of taxpayer dollars has nothing, nothing to do with security and everything to do with Trump’s ego,” Schumer said.
But some Republicans also pushed back.
Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters she wants to hear from Secret Service Director Sean Curran at a closed-door lunch Tuesday before deciding whether to support the funding. Collins said the ballroom itself should continue to be paid for with private donations, “as the president had indicated.”
Senate Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul, R-Ky., echoed the private-funding preference. “That’s still my preference,” he said, adding that Congress had already boosted Secret Service funding after the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the 2024 campaign. “Was it spent wisely? Do they really need more at this time? And a lot of people think this might be papering over for the, you know, the ballroom.”
Other Senate Republicans, including Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, expressed openness to the security spending. Lummis argued that private dollars should cover construction, but “the security part, there’s a role for the taxpayers.”
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was expected to attend Tuesday’s Republican lunch to discuss the plan with senators. House Republicans, who have yet to release their own version of the spending bill, expressed reservations.
“I would look at the security proposal very carefully and make sure those things are in the national interest,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., told reporters last week.
Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., also said he wanted more detail but urged colleagues to recognize “volatile times” and the need to secure the president. He acknowledged the partisan pressure: “If Republican and Democratic members can take a step back and say this is a real security issue, then maybe it will get done.”
Trump said Friday that the $1 billion would be used for “many of the projects” and not all for the ballroom. “They want to do certain things militarily with respect to the ballroom, having nothing to do with us or having to do with the safety of the president,” Trump said.
The White House has said in court documents the project would be “heavily fortified,” including bomb shelters, military installations and a medical facility beneath the ballroom.
The Senate bill says the money would support “security adjustments and upgrades” to the ballroom and could not be used for non-security elements.
Schumer said Democrats will press the Senate parliamentarian to strike the funding from the budget bill and offer amendments to force Republicans to vote on it when debate begins as early as next week.