WSJ to Trump: You're making us all 'ballroom Republicans'

U.S. Senator John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) reacts as he speaks with members of the media outside the Senate chamber, following a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump (REUTERS)

President Donald Trump’s proposed $1 billion ballroom and $1.8 billion slush fund for his political allies, and possibly himself, is destroying the Republican Party — at least, if The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Stassle is to be believed.

“There’s a time and place for every fight, and choosing the best battleground isn’t one of the impatient Donald Trump’s strong suits,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel on Wednesday. “See his demand that a Republican Congress dedicate its recent weeks to a damaging side debate over ‘security funding’ for his proposed East Wing rebuild. The party urgently needs to move beyond what is now a three-month circus over lapsed funding for the Department of Homeland Security and pivot to more-positive midterm messages. It is instead bottled up in a debate over a 90,000-square-foot sliver of White House real estate.”

Strassel added, “The joke is that this isn’t really even about the money. It’s about helping the White House overcome a lawsuit. But the means to that end are proving controversial within the GOP, even as they have provided Democrats an opening to brand their opponents ‘ballroom Republicans.’”

Strassel also pointed out that a number of Senate Republicans are already either opposed to the ballroom spending or have expressed serious doubts about it including Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins. Many House Republicans are also opposed to the ballroom.

Indeed, on Wednesday Democrats successfully blocked Republicans from passing a security spending package because they refused to detach it from Trump’s request for a $1 billion White House ballroom.

“In order to get the funding through the reconciliation process, the Republicans had to give reconciliation instructions to all the relevant committees,” explained Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) on Wednesday. “Well, I’m the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Martin Heinrich is the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And guess what? The White House is a public building under the jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and it’s in a national park under the jurisdiction of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And the Republicans managed not to give reconciliation instructions to either committee.”

Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2017, Heinrich (D-NM) explained that he focuses on stopping government corruption because it literally gets paid for by ordinary Americans.

“Congress must be vigilant against the potential for President Trump to enrich himself and his family at the expense of the average American,” Heinrich said, referring to a report he had published on the subject at the time. “The president and his family’s conflicts of interests are inexcusable and unacceptable, and could depress economic output by over $1,000 per person just in one year. Not only are these practices dangerous, but harmful to the economic security of American families across the country.”

He added at the time that there are “real economic impacts of President Trump’s conflicts of interest, and the harm some of his business interests and financial conflicts could cause. The stakes are high and the risks are real. It’s not just about how the president, his family, and his administration benefit from these conflicts of interest—but how they could hinder economic growth in the long term.”

In addition to Trump’s controversial ballroom, his recent $1.776 billion slush fund to his political supporters, and perhaps himself, is also a political liability, Strassel argued.

“Critics are describing the Trump Justice Department’s new $1.776 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ as a terrible new precedent, a corrupt ‘slush fund’ that greenlights the administration to funnel government checks to political allies,” Strassel said. “Only, there’s nothing groundbreaking about this move. Both the pretext for the fund and its structure are based on models forged by the left. The right has long criticized those actions, which is exactly why it should hate the Trump fund, too.”

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