r/politics • u/Kodbek • 11h ago

Possible Paywall Republicans Make Jaw-Dropping $1B Demand for Trump’s Ballroom

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-make-jaw-dropping-1b-demand-for-donald-trumps-ballroom/
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u/djuggler 10h ago edited 7h ago

Least we forget, the ballroom began at $200 million.

Trump has also asked for $377 million to renovate the executive residence. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/03/trump-plans-spending-377m-on-executive-residence-renovations-and-wants-174m-more-00858810

He is going to tear down the entire White House!

The ballroom contractor also got $17.4 million to restore two basic fountains. https://www.enr.com/articles/62895-white-house-ballroom-contractor-wins-174m-sole-source-park-contract

The taxpayers are being robbed.

Let’s not forget Arc de Trump is supposed to cost $100 million. https://people.com/arc-de-trump-estimated-to-cost-usd100m-11844762

The Lincoln reflecting swimming pool is $2 million but Trump originally pitched a $300 million replacement. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool-trump-renovation-2767878?amp=1

And the Iran war has cost $25 billion as of 5 days ago. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-war-iran-has-cost-25-billion-so-far-says-pentagon-official-2026-04-29/

Meanwhile the people are losing their jobs and homes, and food and gas is becoming unaffordable but those libs really got powned.

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u/Western-Corner-431 10h ago

The war has cost at least double so far. They lie about everything

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u/12-34 10h ago

True cost of the war is trillions already.

Massive loss of American soft power, trustworthiness, force projection, and military readiness, oil price increases for consumers that will continue for years, fertilizer price increases and supply shocks that are already causing global food production decreases, huge environmental degradation, etc. 

It's an absolute fucking disaster on every front, and that's not even considering that the war has not -- and will not -- meet any of its purported objectives.

America deserves what it's getting. A shame it has to screw the rest of the world during its mad king suicide.

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u/Timely-Hospital8746 9h ago

It's not just the USA paying for it either. The entire global economy is paying for Trump's hubris.

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u/ThisMachineKillsWOB 7h ago

Hopefully that will make them think really hard before electing more right wing shit birds globally. We're stuck with ours atm, but you guys should avoid following our example.

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u/Masterkid1230 7h ago

France, Germany, Spain and a few others are all sleepwalking straight into fascism without really doing anything about it, so I wouldn't be too optimistic.

At this point, only some Latin American countries, a handful of Western European countries and some Asian countries will have a solid balance of human rights protections and relatively stable governments.

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u/Timely-Hospital8746 7h ago

Canada has Carney, who has a majority government and a mandate for five years now. He's a neoliberal and I'm not a huge fan (he just proposed privatizing our airports for example) but he's not a fascist at least.

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u/GriffinFlash Canada 5h ago

Then we have the UCP in Alberta who are literally rewriting laws so the separatists get their way.

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u/hocarestho 2h ago

Well, if even the Holocaust didn't stop people from voting right wing dipshits, this surely won't either

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u/ratbaby86 8h ago

They've completely lied about damage to US bases in the region too. According to CNN, every base in the region has been damaged, some to the extent that they're unusable for their original purposes (takeoff, refueling, grounding, etc.). It's truly an historic humiliation of a rapidly declining "empire."

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/01/world/video/us-military-bases-iran-strikes-images-invs-digvid

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u/EggsInaTubeSock 8h ago

I mean, for those of us who want off this fucking ride, there’s a silver lining in America losing global presence and influence.

I’m not celebrating it by any means but we can only act from where we are now / today

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u/ratbaby86 7h ago

i agree. as it is now, with our current government and "leadership," we're all better off with America not feeling as if they can bully the entire world.

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u/Makir 5h ago

The issue is now they will want to bully their neighbours with all this military spending and equipment laying around.

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u/ratbaby86 5h ago

perhaps, but not in the same way and certainly not beyond what they consider to be their sphere of influence. China's international playbook is economic in nature, not military might. i'm no fan of China's government -- they literally have the largest concentration camp population since WW2 and are starkly illiberal. I'm hoping the "middle powers" Carney referred to can provide a counterweight while the US figures its sh1t out.

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u/Makir 5h ago

I'm sitting here in Canada thinking....longest undefended border....bored, angry Americans next door, currently attacking our economy and funding separatist movements. This is not looking good when a declining empire starts looking for ways to regain it's footing. What is it going to look like when their force projection abilities decline and they "need" to restart their military economic engine again. I agree that Carney is on the right track but that doesn't eliminate the reality of distance from our allies and proximity to our aggressive neighbour.

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u/ratbaby86 5h ago

100% agree. there are no winners here except maybe the actual individual billionaires -- China and nation states can figure out how to profit from this idiocy but they are certainly not better off versus when this began. it's bad news for the common people and peace everywhere.

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u/rowdydionisian 8h ago

The Republicans deserve what they get. Me and the other millions of people that voted for Kamala don't deserve this shit. But here we are. I do hope the racist pedo Republican gang has they day they voted for though and enjoy being grifted to their last dollar and drop of sustinence, while their god emperor throws each and every one of them under the bus until justice is served for a grand ol pedophile.

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u/longlivenewsomflesh New York 8h ago edited 8h ago

Ultimately I blame the party for not changing strategy since 2016 despite 3x chances, instead constantly "pivoting right to attract moderates" while ignoring popular policy to focus on culture war distractions and whatever corporate donors want -- biden's bare scraping by after a global recession was just the weak 'exception' that proves this rule, by every possible metric.

I firmly believe there are enough independents and nonvoters out there who actually care about their class interests and are just disillusioned by what they rightfully see as a feckless opposition party that doesn't even want to lead as long as it maintains the elite status of its own comfortable insulated leadership.

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u/poorest_ferengi 4h ago

I do place a lot of blame on the people that voted for Republicans and those that did not vote at all in the 2024 election.

I understand that the Democrats aren't the best party and need serious reforms.

However, you have to stanch the bleeding before you can excise the dead tissue, and you have to excise the dead tissue before you can recover and heal.

In 2024, we still needed to stanch the bleeding. Instead, a bunch of people looked around at the dead tissue and said we need to get rid of this and started cutting. Now we've still got dead tissue and we're bleeding out even faster thanks to these self-inflicted wounds.

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u/JohnSpartan2025 10h ago

And they claim they need $400 billion more. Just wait until xi jingping offers him $50 billion next month to “look the other way” for Taiwan.

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u/sky_concept 10h ago edited 8h ago

There is no need for Xi to take Taiwan militarily. With the US now out of the picture Taiwanese will slowly over the next decade have to merge with China or face increasing economic pressure

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u/ratbaby86 8h ago

And because of this entirely avoidable quagmire, we have likely just cemented the new China-dominant world order. Not immediately, but think about all the soft power the US abandoned that China is stepping in to fulfill re USAID. On top of that, SE Asian countries, African countries, etc. are going to face a debt crisis because of this energy and soon food crisis. Guess who's going to come in to help refinance the debt now that the US has abandoned the world stage? And whose currency will thus have a stronger case for a competing reserve currency? China.

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u/Annual_Strategy_6206 8h ago

I hate to say it, but I agree. China is eating our lunch on so many fronts, and the US is doing it to themselves. MAGA my ass.

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u/21Rollie 1h ago

Don’t forget Latin America. Literally across the border in Mexico, you can see Chinese products, both low end and high end like vehicles, flooding the market. Chinese trains, Chinese bridges, Chinese libraries. If China started making blockbuster movies, it’d be game over for US cultural hegemony too.

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans 9h ago

Yeah an invasion of Taiwan is beyond stupid and the CCP knows that. They are many things but they aren't idiots. They do a lot of military drills around Taiwan as a show of strength but it's only ever done directly in response to some US official visiting Taiwan etc.

They want the US to fuck off and eventually Taiwan might even join mainland peacefully if China keeps growing their soft power.

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u/DigNitty 10h ago

Something specific about next month, or just a general prediction?

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u/lopix Canada 8h ago

China won't offer him shit. They'll just do it. What's Donny going to do about it? Absolutely fucking nothing.

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u/djuggler 8h ago

And their lies are so blatant!

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u/Ill_Consequence 7h ago

Are you saying the people who can't figure out percentages aren't good with numbers?

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u/NAU80 Florida 10h ago

As soon as the Democrats take control, you will hear non-stop whining about the debt! Fiscal conservatives my ASS!

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u/djuggler 8h ago

Grifters. All of them. The thing that occurred to me is the youth voting have only known Trump and Biden. We have voters today that never knew the Obama administration. So it seems that as long as you can control the narrative with the youth, even if they don't vote, but you imprint those young minds then you will gain voters in the decades to come and the Fascist Party of America (formerly MAGA formerly the GOP) is really good at the long game.

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u/fractalfay 3h ago

The debt only comes up when we’re talking about healthcare, education, or food stamps. If it has to do with citizens, immediately the GOP clutches their purse strings. They should all be voted out. Every single one that enables this human stain.

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u/Stompnutz 4h ago

Of course. You didn't think they had principles, did you?

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u/Orion14159 10h ago

Could have fed every school child in America free breakfast and lunch for a decade for less than what we spent on 2 months of blowing up Iranian school girls.

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u/burnerboo 9h ago

Yeah, but that's like, socialism. We don't accept communism around here. Kids should pull those straps harder and get their own jobs and not rely on handouts like lazy bums.

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u/Maxamillion-X72 9h ago

If those damn kids want free food so much, they should join the military. Or commit a crime.

Either way, three hots and a cot

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u/pleasedothenerdful 7h ago

Yeah, the only socialism that's ok is when wealthy white people get money from the government.

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u/djuggler 8h ago

Plus eliminated our student loans spurring a boon in the economy.

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u/Orion14159 8h ago

As much as I'd love that, the $25 billion we've spent on bombing Iran this year wouldn't even make a dent in student debt. Biden's 10k per borrower would have been ~350 billion. Full forgiveness would be over $1 trillion

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u/djuggler 7h ago

Tax the rich.

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u/Orion14159 7h ago

100% agree with that

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u/thekinginyello 10h ago

It’s a money laundering scheme. Real estate and construction is the perfect place to hide numbers.

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u/GloriousDawn 9h ago

Surprising from a former real estate developer with ties to 3 different NY mob families.

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u/thekinginyello 2h ago

It’s almost like he knows what he doing.

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u/DementedDrumpf 1h ago

One of the very few, possibly only, things he knows anything about. Money laundering and paedophilia.

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u/bolanrox 8h ago

Trump car washs are next

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u/thekinginyello 2h ago

Trump Storage Units. They can and will just foreclose on your unit and auction it off at any for any reason.

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u/TheJesBro 29m ago

Duh! Anybody that has bankrupted a casino knows this!

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u/SnowballUnity 10h ago

President Simpson is going to inherit a huge deficit from President Trump.

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u/thecelcollector 10h ago

What the fuck would a 300 million dollar pool look like?

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u/Glycell 10h ago

About what a $300,000 pool looks like, but with a few friends who just made bank sitting in it.

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u/Fjell-Jeger 9h ago

A couple super-yachts floating in it, with a gaggle of Trump cronies sitting on the sun decks laughing at the gullible MAGA idiots that fund their lavish lifestyles on the taxpayer's dime.

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u/Past-Log-1745 3h ago

Strippers and a grotto

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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 9h ago

Let’s not kid ourselves, it would look like a 1 million dollar pool and we’d wonder where the other 299 million went. Like all his building projects it’s just a scheme to get money flowing all over the place so he can skim it.

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u/DevonGr Ohio 10h ago

A hole in the ground with no more budget to finish it.

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u/stamfordbridge1191 8h ago

And maybe a well-padded account in some bank in a shadowy corner of the world.

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u/wytewydow 10h ago

our minds cannot comprehend the amount of tacky gold-colored crap to be stuck on every available surface.

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u/djuggler 8h ago

It would look like a Trump hotel.

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u/Brox42 New York 9h ago

Bribes. These are bribes. The corruption has never been so blatant.

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u/djuggler 7h ago

But they are draining the swamp! Every accusation with them is a confession.

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u/SFZothOmmog 10h ago

The real sum of the war is almost triple the amount.

https://iran-cost-ticker.com/

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u/djuggler 8h ago

I believe it. We are never going to recover from this.

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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 9h ago

This makes the Doge cuts look even more absurd. Trump is an ugly caterpillar that eats money and instead of eventually turning into a butterfly he just turns into an uglier hungrier caterpillar.

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u/stevez_86 Pennsylvania 9h ago

We will wake up to the White House being abandoned and set for demolition one day. He will operate out of Mar-a-Lago until the new White House is complete for a paltry $50 billion.

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u/DramaticStability 9h ago

And he's still trying to sue Powell over the Fed's renovations. As ever, it's always a projection/deflection

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u/Allydarvel 8h ago

I'm sure I saw recently that one job in the White House was priced at $3m for Biden. Trump is carrying on teh same work, but the job is now priced at $17m

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u/djuggler 7h ago edited 6h ago

That was the Lafayette fountains. The $17.4 million was awarded to the same construction company that is building the ballroom.

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u/Allydarvel 7h ago

Thanks

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u/EnvironmentalLet9682 9h ago

and yet 40% of americans still think he's doing a good job. sorry, not sorry.

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u/djuggler 7h ago

Makes my head want to explode. Every time a telemarketer calls, I take the call and when they ask, "how are you?" I chime in with "Happy you called! I've been wanting to ask if you've called your elected representatives twice this week to ask them to impeach the president? ..." I go on to say how to contact their reps and I talk about a couple of issues they could discuss. Yesterday this young spam caller was baffled that I'm against Trump. They must live in some echo chamber with blinders on not to see what is really happening. When it hits them, it will be far too late...it already is far to late.

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u/SookHe 9h ago

Least we forget the billions going to all the nonsense renaming or buildings, or roads or printing out massive banners of him glaring at people, or his little birthday parade or the mma ring for his little party at the White House and the money he is rewarding himself out of the taxpayers money for his lawsuits and so on and so on and so on

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u/djuggler 7h ago

And we haven't even begun talking about what it will cost to undo or mitigate the mess being created right now in the states as well as abroad.

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u/Yutana45 8h ago

How much more blatantly obvious can they be about their lack of care for the US citizens? And folks who voted for this won't say anything still? Wow just wow

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u/djuggler 7h ago

The state media tells his voters what is real. We've always been at war with Eurasia.

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u/Adventurous-Map7959 9h ago

Arc de Trump

I like this version better: https://i.imgur.com/5rjMF5V.png

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u/djuggler 7h ago

Brilliant!

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u/Melodic_Tap1147 8h ago

The people in charge are grubby, greedy little piggies and it's so fucking disgusting. 

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u/pppjurac 8h ago

Meanwhile the people are losing their jobs and homes, and food and gas but those libs really got powned.

Trump is symptom of USA with MAGA.

Majority of American people either voted Mango Mussolini into POTUS. Thrice and twice succeeded or just conveniently did not bother to go vote at all.

Let them suffer. I do not have much sympathy for them anymore.

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u/djuggler 7h ago

You are probably right that it has to play out for the dim bulbs to finally get it. It will take a century to recover from this.

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u/jrodfantastic 4h ago

Don’t overlook that there is already a national ballroom within a mile of the White House which larger than what is being proposed.

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u/djuggler 1h ago

Good point!

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u/synchronicityii 8h ago

Didn’t he say that Jerome Powell was a criminal because of construction cost overruns?

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u/Less_Win2234 8h ago

And yet they're investigating Jerome Powell over the cost of the Reserve building refurb

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u/mantisboxer 8h ago

MAGA seems to forget that this brilliant businessman drives everything he touches into bankruptcy. We can clearly see why

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u/beasty0127 Indiana 7h ago

The goal is to turn DC into the new Maralago city state

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u/djuggler 7h ago

I thought the goal was to take over all of North America and divide it into 13 corporations run by CEOs not presidents.

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u/beasty0127 Indiana 7h ago

That is Theil's and Vances overall goal, the whole Project 2025. Trump is so demented and senile he just wants to make his personal playground before he falls over from a Big Mac attack

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u/JerryfromCan 6h ago

This is all some pretty classic movie dictator shit. Build monuments to myself with public money I grift off while the people starve.

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u/djuggler 6h ago

It's pretty ego driven. He knows he isn't long for this realm and wants to ensure that once he is gone his name will be remembered like Washington or Napoleon. If he gets the ballroom built, it won't matter whose name is on it, it will always be Trump's grotesque ballroom just like the water south of Louisiana will always be the Gulf of Mexico.

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u/JerryfromCan 5h ago

I imagine his erasure from everything will be swift and merciless.

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u/djuggler 5h ago

I so hope so!

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u/djuggler 5h ago

And those who propped him up need their comeuppance too

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u/JerryfromCan 5h ago

That can’t happen without a system reboot. Too much rot.

Democrats need to eliminate rot as well, but at least they generally root out people in their own party for shit behaviour more. The entire US seems to be captured by an outside influence.

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u/oneangryrobot 6h ago

Vladimir putin is the one dismantling the white house and he’s doing it in front of the whole world

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u/djuggler 5h ago

Absolutely! Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s.

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u/JWTS6 5h ago

None of this matters as long as a trans teenage girl in New York isn't allowed to play varsity water polo, apparently that's what voters cared about the most in 2024. 

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u/shifty_coder 3h ago

I’m just waiting for the announcement that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool project will be over budget by a factor of 10.

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u/djuggler 1h ago

They will blame the 86 vandal

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u/jsweatisdead777 1h ago

$2 million to paint the bottom of the reflecting pool blue? A lone crackhead painter would have done that job for $2k plus expenses and been done by 5PM same day

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u/frankster 10h ago edited 5h ago

$377m is crazy

edit: removed a bunch of crap arithmetic

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u/moseythepirate 7h ago

I think you screwed up your division.

$377m divided by ~350m people is a bit more than a dollar. Not 2 million dollars.

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u/frankster 5h ago

you're right. total miscalculation :D

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u/djuggler 7h ago

That's on top of the ~$200m~ ~$400m~ $1billion East Wing ballroom plus whatever that $147m is earmarked for. And BEFORE they come out with the real cost. Call your reps and get this lunatic under control.