Trump and his team try (and fail) to defend the escalating cost of the ballroom project

The original plan for Donald Trump’s White House ballroom vanity project was to spend $200 million, and every penny would come from private donations. Three months later, the price tag grew to $250 million. Soon after, it was $300 million. Late last year, it was up to $400 million — though again the official line was that American taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook for the costs at all, even as the White House went out of its way to hide the identities of donors.

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This week, however, everything changed: Congressional Republicans unveiled a budget reconciliation package, which Democrats would be powerless to stop, that set aside $1 billion in taxpayer funds for the ballroom project with the costs to be added to the budget deficit.

On Wednesday morning, the president used his social media platform to present a defense of sorts. The online piece read, in part:

The only reason the cost has changed is because, after deep rooted studies, it is approximately twice the size, and a far higher quality, than the original proposal, which would not have been adequate to handle the necessary events, meetings, and even future Inaugurations. … It will be magnificent, safe, and secure!

Or, as New York magazine’s Nia Prater summarized, Trump wants the public to believe the ballroom will cost more “because it’s more awesome.”

A White House official told MS NOW the project will still be paid for with the private funds already raised and that the $1 billion will be used to “better secure the White House complex.”

That might sound vaguely compelling, were it not for the legislative text of the GOP bill that specifically says the $1 billion in public funds would be used for the “East Wing Modernization Project.” (The East Wing of the White House was recently destroyed, to be replaced by Trump’s vanity project.)