'Can't take care of daycare': Tammy Duckworth calls out Donald Trump's ballroom project

Senator Tammy Duckworth called out President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project on Thursday, claiming that it was costing taxpayers $1 billion. She shared a video of the President talking about how the federal government could not pay for daycare, Medicare, or Medicaid, and said that the President was instead willing to spend a billion dollars on a "golden ballroom."

As per several reports, $1 billion has been set aside for the security infrastructure of President Trump's White House ballroom project. Senate Republicans recently proposed a $70 billion spending plan that ties long-term funding for immigration enforcement, including ICE and border patrol, to a $1 billion security upgrade for the "East Wing Modernization Project." The bill ended a months-long funding standoff that caused the 76-day partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, the longest in U.S. history. 

White House spokesman Davis Ingle thanked Congress for approving additional funding for security infrastructure upgrades in relation to the "long-overdue East Wing Modernization Project." Calls for the White House ballroom grew louder among Republicans after the shooting incident at the recent White House Correspondents' Dinner. However, Democrats are still pushing back, citing affordability issues Americans are facing.

Senator Dick Durbin posted that while Americans were struggling with the prices of gas, food, and housing, Republicans were more interested in getting a billion dollars approved for the White House ballroom, which he called a "vanity project." "After Trump promised for months that the ballroom would not cost taxpayers a dime. Backwards," he added. Sen. Elizabeth Warren claimed that Republicans had "slipped" the $1 billion for the ballroom into an "ICE spending bill."

When asked about the billion dollars of taxpayer money going towards the project, President Trump said that the fund was "for projects having to do with safety in a certain section of the White House grounds." He added that private donors, including himself, were putting up $400 million for the ballroom.

"But 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. So, having to do with a lot of things, but we are going to have a safe ballroom," Trump said. He averred that Congress was going to use the money for the safety of the White House as a whole and not just the East Wing or the ballroom. President Trump had asked Republicans in Congress to have the funding approved on his desk for a signature by June 1.