Trump’s Ballroom Secret Plans REVEALED

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]There's been a lot of discussion recently about Donald Trump's new White House ballroom. I'm going to break down what is happening, and you should pay attention to this because it has to do with your money.

[00:00:27]I am a certified public accountant and I've worked on several large government-f funed projects. So, I can explain to you what happens behind the scenes and what you should be looking out for. Let me start with a really simple example, maintenance. There is a major problem with this ballroom that no one is talking about. Whenever you build a building, any building, you're going to have maintenance cost. In this case, we're talking about a high-end highsecurity banquet hall. This is going to have an enormous annual monthly maintenance cost. Who's paying for that?

[00:01:03]Even if the entire building is paid for with donations, someone still has to pay the maintenance bills every year. We're talking about an enormous amount of money. This needs to be calculated and planned for. And right now it's not in anyone's budget. I have been going through all the documents for the ballroom and I have not seen a single calculation for maintenance cost. Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I have not seen it. Let me explain how the process is supposed to work. Whenever you build a government building, you gather all your plans together and show them to the public. These plans will include the maintenance cost every year for the next 30 years that public tax dollars are going to have to pay for. The public needs to agree to this before a shovel is placed in the ground. With the White House ballroom, that didn't happen. I should have known that maintenance cost before Trump tore down the building. Let us look at some numbers. A typical rule of thumb for maintenance is 3 to 5% of building cost. Let us assume a $300 million building. I think the ballroom is going to be much more than that, but let's just start with 300 million.

[00:02:12]Maintenance could be $9 to $15 million per year. That is for HVAC, fire alarms, elevators, roofing, plumbing, electrical, etc. That does not include additional cost for it. There's going to be a lot of computer equipment in this building that needs to be upgraded every 5 years. We're talking about so much money that is not accounted for anywhere. Now, personally, I support building a ballroom. I think it is a really good idea. I think it's silly that we don't have one, but I think we need to follow the process. This is one of my big problems with government. If they just followed the process, nothing about the ballroom would be an issue.

[00:02:59]This is the fundamental problem because when politicians do not follow the process, that usually means they're trying to hide something. They're not bringing forward all the plans because there is something they don't want people to know about. So, what are they hiding about the ballroom? To use my previous example, they're hiding the maintenance cost. They are not telling you the enormous amount of money you are going to be required to pay for this because they don't want to stop construction. That is unethical. Which is why politicians have to follow the process. And let us be clear here. This is not a situation where Donald Trump made a mistake or he doesn't know what is going on. Donald Trump is a builder.

[00:03:45]He knows all about maintenance cost.

[00:03:48]He's just trying to trick everyone by saying it won't cost the taxpayers anything when he knows exactly what he is doing. Maintenance cost is just one problem with the ballroom. We're going to go through some more. The next example is something called scope creep.

[00:04:04]This is something you really need to watch out for in government construction projects. This is when costs seem to grow and grow and grow. This is another reason why we should demand all the construction plans upfront before a shovel goes into the ground. That way, we all know exactly what is being built and it's easier to prevent scope creep.

[00:04:26]Donald Trump first mentioned the ballroom after his first 100 days in an interview with Meet the Press.

[00:04:32]President Trump greeting supporters at an RNC fundraiser at Mara Lago, showing us the main ballroom at his private club and sharing new details about the one he plans to build at the White House.

[00:04:46]>> We are going to make and build a ballroom >> which they've wanted for probably a hundred years at the White House and it'll be a worldclass beautiful ballroom.

[00:04:57]>> A ballroom that could cost millions of dollars. He says he will pay for it himself. You will fund it.

[00:05:04]>> I'm not going to ask the government for money. I'll fund it and I'm sure we'll have some donations to it, but uh it's not an inexpensive thing. It'll cost a lot of money.

[00:05:13]>> He says, "I'm not going to ask the government for money." That was in May 2025.

[00:05:20]Let me show you another statement Trump made on March 29th, 2026.

[00:05:25]And all uh of this money, all of the money paid is are paid by myself and donors. That's all donors. There's not one dime of government money going into the ballroom.

[00:05:37]>> He said not one dime of government money is going into the ballroom. Keep in mind that this was 2 months ago. Let me show you some more examples.

[00:05:48]>> And I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it. country is not. We're donating a $400 million ballroom. Myself and donors are giving them free of charge for nothing. We did this at no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever. Rich people and people are putting up the money. Zero taxpayer dollars. I >> think it'll cost $250 million. And uh it will be, I think, the finest. It's about $300 million approximately.

[00:06:15]400 million. I think I'll do it for less, but it's 400. I should do it for less. I will do it for less, but just in case I say 400.

[00:06:24]>> All of this has changed since the shooting incident at the White House correspondents dinner. The online response from the shooting was that a bunch of MAGA related accounts tweeted out that we needed to build the ballroom. Now, legislation is being introduced to fund the ballroom. In the Senate, Lindsey Graham is introducing a bill to authorize $400 million for the ballroom.

[00:06:47]>> So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to introduce legislation that would authorize $400 million to be spent to secure the pre to build the presidential ballroom.

[00:06:59]Then in another bill about border protection, Senator Grassley added a section authorizing $1 billion for the ballroom, and I'm going to show it to you. Appropriation. In addition to amounts otherwise available, there is appropriated to the United States Secret Service for fiscal year 2026 out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated $1 billion to remain available until September 30th, 2029 for the purposes of security adjustments and upgrades, including within the perimeter fence of the White House compound to support enhancements by the United States Secret Service relating to the East Wing modernization project, including above ground and below ground security features. Do you see what this is? They are sneaking in $1 billion of funding for the ballroom by saying it is security related and hiding it in a bill about the border.

[00:07:54]This is pretty sneaky stuff for something that was supposed to be free.

[00:07:59]Then Trump said this ballroom.

[00:08:02]>> So what happened is uh we have a ballroom that's under budget. It's going up right here. I've doubled the size of it because we obviously need that. And uh we're right now on budget, under budget, and ahead of schedule.

[00:08:17]>> I doubled the size of it. You dumb person. Double the size.

[00:08:22]>> You are You are not a smart person.

[00:08:27]>> Donald Trump doubled the size of the ballroom.

[00:08:31]Yeah. Because now it's costing a billion dollars and we're paying for the whole thing. scope creep has happened with this project within the last two months.

[00:08:40]This is giving Trump's critics a very valid argument.

[00:08:45]>> None of this makes any sense.

[00:08:47]>> No, >> none of it makes any sense. This is the same stuff he said about the wall.

[00:08:53]>> I'm going to make Mexico pay for the wall. It will not come out of tax. Next thing you know, they like, "We need money for the wall.

[00:09:00]>> We need some money." Now you need money for a ballroom. So clearly, you know, you can't. This means he's not going to be No, no, no.

[00:09:10]>> Erase that.

[00:09:11]>> Erase that. Because the first thing I really want to say is it's not your building.

[00:09:17]>> IT'S NOT YOURS. THAT'S THE FIRST THING.

[00:09:20]This is this belongs to the people of the United States of America. It is not your building.

[00:09:27]So building this ballroom basically means you're never leaving.

[00:09:32]>> Exactly. That's my question. Is he planning to live there? I guess so.

[00:09:36]Well, let's >> I want to remind everybody about another controversy going on right now, which is the renovation of the Federal Reserve building. Donald Trump has viciously attacked the Fed chair for this project going over budget.

[00:09:52]>> Feder, uh, would you fire uh Jerome Pal over the Treasury renovation?

[00:09:57]>> Well, he spent $2.5 million building this place. I I have to say this. I think he's terrible. I think he's a total stiff. But the one thing I didn't see him is a guy that needed a palace to live in. You talk to the guy, it's like talking to a nothing. It's like talking to a chair. No personality, no high intelligence, no nothing. But the one thing I would have never guessed is that he would be spending $2.5 billion dollars to build a little extension onto the Fed. Now, the ballroom is not $2.5 billion like the Fed project, at least not yet. But it has jumped up to $1 billion, so it's well on its way. This is how Trump explains how we should deal with someone who is mismanaging a project.

[00:10:46]>> As a real estate developer, what would you do with a project manager who would be over budget?

[00:10:52]>> Uh, generally speaking, what would I do?

[00:10:55]I'd fire him. Do you think this is >> the next issue is funding problems. You should never start a government project without knowing how it's going to be paid for. This should be common sense because what happens if you get halfway through the project and you run out of money for the ballroom project? It looks like they've already started construction towards a $1 billion building, but we're not really sure how we're going to fund it yet. This is a problem. Before they tore down the east wing of the White House, we should have seen the building plans, seen the cost estimate, and then had matching funds for the expected cost of the building.

[00:11:34]Instead, a partial list of private donors has been released for somewhere around $300 million.

[00:11:42]That $300 million is also a problem.

[00:11:46]When you look at the list of names, several of these people may have conflicts of interest. So far, 37 names have been released. We have companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

[00:11:58]And we have individuals like the Aden family, the Lenik family, and Steven Schwarzman, who is the CEO of Blackstone. These donations could present conflicts of interest. We're not even sure if these donations are legal.

[00:12:12]We don't know if they're classified as donations to a 501c3 or as lobbying expenses.

[00:12:18]So far, one donor has reported their donation as a lobbying expense. This is the lobbying report for Vantiv US Healthcare LLC where they donated $2.5 million for the White House Ballroom Project. But the other companies have not filed this. So even within the donors, they do not agree on how this money should be classified.

[00:12:41]Most of these companies bid on high value government procurements.

[00:12:46]How do we know this money is not a bribe for government favors?

[00:12:50]A bunch of these companies are involved in AI. Are they paying this money so that they can have input into the government's AI plan? So much of these donations are being kept secret. Why is that? We should know everything about these donations to ensure that corruption is not happening.

[00:13:10]If these donations get challenged in court, we might not have any money for the ballroom.

[00:13:16]Do you see the problem with starting a government project without the funding being secured? The next issue is secrecy.

[00:13:25]Donald Trump is building this new extension without telling anyone what is going on. He has made a bunch of speeches about it, but all he's really told us is general information that keeps changing. I understand that some of these things are going to be classified, but the level of secrecy for this very expensive project is shocking.

[00:13:45]They are asking you to pay $1 billion and they're not telling you why. I don't think I'm the only person who has a problem with that. You've probably heard about all these lawsuits over the ballroom. Trump says that it is just the radical left trying to shut him down.

[00:14:03]That is not what is happening. Here is the lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. If you read their complaint, it is basically asking Trump to stop construction until he tells them what he is doing. They want to stop the secrecy. And I think that's a pretty reasonable request. If we go to the transcript from the hearing December 16th, 2025, here are some of the problems they brought up. One, they did not follow the National Capital Planning Act. They're supposed to submit plans for approval before they stick a shovel in the ground. Number two, they did not receive comment from the Commission on Fine Arts. Instead, Trump fired all the board members and said he could not submit to them because they do not exist. Number three, they did not follow the National Environmental Protection Act, which requires an environmental assessment. You have to have a whole environmental study done before you begin construction.

[00:15:02]Number four, they did not follow statute 8106, which says, "A building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the federal government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress."

[00:15:19]That is pretty explicit.

[00:15:22]Trump is just ignoring this law.

[00:15:25]I've never heard of a government project flaunting the law as much as this ballroom is. This is incredible. Again, I support the ballroom. I think we need a ballroom. I just think we should follow the process. Since the lawsuit started, some of these issues have been addressed. For instance, an environmental assessment was quickly prepared by the National Park Service in August 2025. So, Trump's staff basically prepared their own assessment. I'm wondering how thorough that could have possibly been. But at least we have something.

[00:16:01]I'm wondering if any of these things would have happened without this lawsuit. Let me explain why this is so bad.

[00:16:09]Donald Trump has already knocked down the east wing of the White House. They are already starting the construction of the foundation. Trump says this is not a problem because all the National Trust for Historic Preservation needs to do is to approve the above ground structure.

[00:16:25]Trump wants to start building the basement and he does not think it needs approval.

[00:16:31]That is completely wrong.

[00:16:33]You cannot build one foundation and then build a different building on top of it.

[00:16:39]If the foundation does not match the structure, the building's going to collapse.

[00:16:45]Part of the purpose of review of the plans is to make sure the building has proper support. The foundation and the structure have to be approved at the same time.

[00:16:56]Let me ask you this.

[00:16:58]How do we know whether or not the ballroom is being built on quicksand?

[00:17:04]We have no idea because we have not been given a single diagram of what the foundation looks like. Nothing. We've just been giving drawings of the top of the building. You might think I'm being overdramatic. I am not. This is a very common problem with large buildings like this. It happens all the time where you construct a building and then the foundation starts to settle and the whole building tilts over to one side.

[00:17:32]Walls start to crack, windows start to shatter, the entire building is ruined.

[00:17:38]We are talking about the swampy ground in Washington DC. I think this is a major risk.

[00:17:46]What is being done to prevent this?

[00:17:49]If the foundation settles for the ballroom, the approval process of the foundation is going to be very important. We need to see those plans.

[00:18:00]and shame on the National Trust for Historic Preservation for approving any of this building without having a single assurance that it is not being built on quicksand.

[00:18:12]Are you telling me that you are just assuming that the White House is going to build the foundation correctly without cutting any corners? Because that is a really bad assumption. But that's not the only problem.

[00:18:25]Let us imagine the planning commission decides that the ballroom should be half the size.

[00:18:31]Well, if the basement's already been constructed, there's nothing they can do. They have already been locked into a plan they have not approved. Let me show you what Donald Trump is doing. This is the paperwork that was submitted March 5th, 2026. You can see previous actions was the information presentation that was given on the above ground structure.

[00:18:54]Remaining actions include review of potential perimeter security and related projects. In other words, the basement.

[00:19:03]So they are separating out everything above ground which they are getting approval for and everything in the basement which they are keeping a secret. This nobody knew when it was happening. Nobody knows how it's happening. You say that it's being paid for by other people but you know it's always going to come down to the people.

[00:19:21]The people are always going to end up paying something. So it I don't understand why you don't get that people are saying wait a minute nobody asked we didn't know I don't remember asking for a ballroom right I want us to recognize that this is not a left or right issue this is an issue of being an American citizen and us being able to say this is what we like and this is what we don't like and I don't know anybody who thinks that a president should not have to go to the Senate or to Congress or to someone for some oversight. No one wants him to be able to just write a a thing because, you know, had Obama >> Forget it.

[00:20:05]>> Can you imagine what would have happened if Obama had just said, "Listen, I'm going to obliterate." Oh, wait.

[00:20:11]>> All Michelle did was make a vegetable GARDEN AND THEY LOST THEIR MIND.

[00:20:14]>> THAT'S RIGHT. I FORGOT ABOUT THAT.

[00:20:16]>> They forgot about >> You just planted some lettuce and everybody was in an up whole thing, y'all. It's a bull thing. I cannot believe I'm agreeing with the women on the view. They have a point. This is all happening at a time when people are really struggling. The economy is not good. When people cannot afford to put food on the table, it's not fair to ask people to pay $1 billion for a ballroom.

[00:20:45]>> He shouldn't be doing that. He should be focusing on on on lowering these prices that he jacked up because it wasn't this high before he became president, man.

[00:20:53]Gas was was three something barely $3.

[00:20:57]Now it's four. You know it is. He don't need to be talking about ballrooms, man.

[00:21:03]You need to be trying to fix the economy.

[00:21:04]>> On the couch prediction markets, people are betting whether or not the ballroom will get completed. You can see on the green line on this chart, only 61% of people think the ballroom will be completed before 2030. This is down from 84% before people knew they had to pay for it. According to polling, people are not happy. Americans who support or believe in ghost, that comes in at 39%.

[00:21:30]How about telepathy? That comes in at 29%. And the new White House ballroom comes in below both of those at 28%. So the bottom line is this. This new White House ballroom is most certainly not popular. More Americans believe in ghosts and slightly more though within the margin of error believe in telepathy. And I will note that our cameraman right now is laughing like nobody's business.

[00:21:54]>> I want to go back to my original concept. When politicians are not following the process, they're usually trying to hide something. So we should be asking ourselves, what is in this basement that they're trying to hide?

[00:22:08]The only information we have received are these comments from Donald Trump.

[00:22:13]>> How the military is building a a big complex under the ballroom which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed. But the military is building a massive complex under the ballroom and that's under construction and we're doing very well. So we're ahead of schedule. That's part of it.

[00:22:33]And the ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what's being built under the military, including from drones and including from any other thing.

[00:22:41]>> The ballroom becomes a shed for what the military is building under it. Now, there are already a lot of theories about what is going to be in this secret basement. Some people say it is a data center. Some people say it is a bunker.

[00:22:55]I'm not going to get into the details because we really don't know. We do know it is a military project and that is the next issue. The White House is supposed to be the people's elected representative.

[00:23:09]Should we have a $1 billion military installation underneath the White House?

[00:23:16]I do not agree with that. I agreed to the ballroom. I did not agree to a military takeover of the White House. In my previous videos, I have talked about how I believe there's a conflict between the different intelligence agencies. We have all these different agencies in the US and we have seen evidence that they have been illegally pushing political agendas. CIA agents wrote the letter about the Hunter Biden laptop that they knew was false and tried to swing the election. We know that Donald Trump receives a lot of endorsements from the military and they have their own intelligence operation. So, we have this conflict going on between the CIA supporting the Democrats and military intelligence supporting Republicans. Now that Donald Trump is in office, we have a $1 billion military installation being constructed underneath the White House.

[00:24:09]Whatever is being built in there, it's going to be staffed by the military.

[00:24:15]No one but the military is going to be able to work those machines. So going forward, there's going to be an entire military contingent with guns sitting in the basement underneath the president.

[00:24:28]Don't you think that's going to impact his decisions? I think this is a takeover to permanently freeze out influence from the CIA. The military can make sure whoever is the president is doing what they want. In the government, boots on the ground really matter. If you are in the room when decisions are made, your voice gets heard. If you're not in the room, good luck.

[00:24:55]That is why people want office space in the White House. So, I have a problem with this whole thing. According to Trump, this ballroom is just a shed for the military. It looks to me like the military is creating a shadow government in the basement of the White House. I have a problem with that. That is why I believe they're trying to hide the whole thing. They're trying to hide the shadow government takeover. It's not acceptable for Donald Trump to say the whole basement is top secret and you can't know anything about it. We need more transparency to make sure they're not doing anything shady.

[00:25:37]If they want to say one room or two little rooms in the basement are top secret, that's fine. But we should know in general what is going on in the basement. And do not let them gaslight you into thinking we should not ask questions.

[00:25:54]They can give us general descriptions about everything that is going on in there. I do not want to spend a billion dollars to house a secret military contingent under the White House. Now, I want to hear from you. Do you think we should pay a billion dollars for the ballroom? Let me know in the comments down below. And if you like this video, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on future videos. If you want to support independent journalism like this channel, consider signing up for a membership on my website, wolves & finance.com. For $6 a month, your support helps me to keep making these videos. Thank you to everyone who signed up. I'm Zach from Wolves & Finance.

[00:26:33]Thank you for watching.

[00:26:37]Heat.