Maggie Haberman Calls Out GOP Pushing Ballroom ‘to Impress Trump’ and ‘Make Him Happy’

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman called out Republicans supporting funding for President Donald Trump’s ballroom in order “to impress Trump” and “make him happy.”

One subplot of the shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) 0n Saturday has been a MAGA groundswell demanding completion of Trump’s multi-hundred-million-dollar ballroom. Originally proposed as a donor-funded project, Republicans are now pushing to appropriate $400 million in taxpayer funds for the ballroom.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, anchor Kaitlan Collins asked Haberman about funding for the ballroom:

KAITLAN COLLINS: Maggie, first off, on this new effort where, you know, we did here for months, It’s private donations that are paying for this, not taxpayer dollars. What do you make of this split between Republicans now, in terms of who should pay for the ballroom at the White House.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: Look, putting aside, Kaitlan, the fact that what happened on Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was terrible, and it was very fortuitous that nobody was hurt. There was obviously quick effort by the Secret Service to get the alleged gunman into custody.

Putting that aside, that was a media-hosted event. It has been a media-hosted event for 50-plus years. It’s not clear to me, why a ballroom is now imperative in terms of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Because I’d be very surprised if the White House Correspondents’ Association decided now this is going to be a presidential event. It kind of defeats the whole purpose. Number one. But number — although I can’t profess to speak for the Association.

But number two, yes, I don’t know how we get to why taxpayers should pay for it. It is — there have been all kinds of competing ways that Republicans on the Hill have been looking to try to impress President Trump and try to make him happy. And everyone knows how focused he is on the ballroom. He doesn’t make much of a secret of it. He talks about it very openly, as you noted.

But yes, the whole point was always this was going to be privately funded. And even with that, it was hard to imagine that, in terms of building a new bunker, and again, things that he’s talked about publicly that I always thought were supposed to be pretty sensitive, there’s no way that that was being funded only privately, but that is what it is. That’s fine. That’s security.

What happens to the private money, if it’s supposedly hundreds of millions of dollars? But again — that’s one question. It’s — this has all become very hard to understand other than the fact that it’s — it will — it will please the President to have more focus on the ballroom, and maybe private money freed up for other things.

COLLINS: Yes. I mean, it was kind of remarkable to see the contractors who were working on it.

HABERMAN: Right.

COLLINS: It’s obviously certainly getting a lot of attention inside the Oval.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

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