Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Monday said she will fight efforts to use taxpayer money to pay for the massive ballroom President Donald Trump’s trying to have built on the White House grounds.
Reporter Pablo Manríquez of MeidasTouch asked Ocasio-Cortez about a new push this week by Republican lawmakers to provide taxpayer money for the $400 million project.
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“Hell no,” she said.
Trump has said the ballroom wouldn’t cost taxpayers a penny. But after the shooting at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, some GOP lawmakers have been pushing for taxpayers to fund it instead, claiming it will keep the president safe.
Ocasio-Cortez isn’t buying it.
“The idea that they’re going to make this palace on taxpayer dime after they said that whatever billionaire they have a sweetheart deal with was gonna foot the bill, it’s just not acceptable,” she said.
Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images
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Trump has been obsessing over his planned ballroom since he announced it last year.
He brings it up constantly, often unprompted. He attacks critics of the plan on social media. And, at one point, the president even got up during a White House meeting of oil industry executives to gaze out a window at the place it will be built.
One of his key selling points is that he’s not using any taxpayer money on the project.
Instead, he’s claimed the up to $400 million cost of the ballroom will be funded by private donations, although that has raised ethical and other questions the White House has yet to answer.
The project is also facing legal challenges.
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