Donald Trump went on a tirade against Sen. John Thune after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that Republicans cannot include hundreds of millions of dollars to provide security for the White House ballroom in a budget bill.
The president called the Senate majority leader on Monday to air his grievances after Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that money allotted in a mammoth $1 billion security spending package cannot be included in a separate $72 billion immigration enforcement bill, reported Semafor.
Trump was so irate at MacDonough that he called on Thune to fire the nonpartisan Senate rulekeeper, sources told NOTUS.
Trump is becoming increasingly obsessed with his ballroom project, which he demolished the East Wing of the White House to make room for.
Last month, The Washington Post reported on how the 79-year-old president is spending an obscene amount of time and energy on the project, even as his deeply unpopular war on Iran drags on.
Thune rejected the suggestion that he would fire MacDonough after she ruled that the $1 billion Secret Service reconciliation package needed to be reworked to comply with budget rules.
“We’re going through a process that we go through every time we have a reconciliation bill and the people on both sides are mad at the parliamentarian. That’s been true,” Thune told NOTUS.
The parliamentarian ruled on Saturday that Republicans’ $1 billion spending package—of which around $200 million would go toward security enhancements for Trump’s ballroom project—did not comply with reconciliation rules.
Specifically, MacDonough found that the security funding bill could not be passed through the Senate’s fast-track budget reconciliation process. This would have allowed the bill to pass the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes, instead of the usual 60-vote threshold.
Republicans currently hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate, meaning the bill has no hope of passing without using reconciliation, since Democrats are united in their opposition.
“The American people shouldn’t spend a single dime on Trump’s gold-plated ballroom boondoggle,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement. “While we expect Republicans to change this bill to appease Trump, Democrats are prepared to challenge any change to this bill.”
Republicans are working on revising the language in the bill in order to get funding for the Secret Service approved through reconciliation, although it remains unclear whether money earmarked for Trump’s ballroom will be permitted under the rules.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley told Semafor that “there’s no doubt that the Secret Service needs some upgrades,” but said he is unsure whether this will ultimately include the ballroom security funding.
Thune‘s spokesman played down this latest obstacle in a post on X Saturday night.
“Redraft. Refine. Resubmit. None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process,” Ryan Wasse wrote, referring to the Senate procedure to stop extraneous items being included in reconciliation bills.
In a statement to Semafor and NOTUS about Trump’s call to Thune, a White House official said: “We don’t comment on private conversations that may or may not have happened.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for further comment.
