Unanimous Consent Request

Floor Speech

As the Washington Post has pointed out, this is an all-consuming, favorite project of the President. It is a massive, giant ballroom to be built on the ruins of the East Wing, the ``People's House.''

I certainly agree that security for the President is absolutely essential, but this project was not conceived as a security project. It was conceived as a massive ballroom so large that it turns the White House into an auxiliary dwelling unit. It is like the big mansion is the ballroom, and you have this little, tiny house one-fourth the size that is the White House. That is this gilded project the President was undertaking to put his Louis XIV ``I am a monarch'' stamp on the President's grounds. But we took an oath to a Constitution that doesn't have a monarch, and it doesn't have a King, and Trump is not Louis XIV, so I have a number of concerns about this.

First, my colleague mentioned that it is going to be paid for by private donations; however, a number of his colleagues have been advocating fiercely that it be paid for out of our Treasury.

Certainly $400 million buys a lot of support for education and housing and healthcare--24,000 kids going to Head Start, 52,000 children being able to benefit from childcare, and the list goes on.

The argument has been made that this would be a great place for State dinners, but we already have a great place for State dinners. We have the State Dining Room at the White House that seats 140. We have the East Room that seats 200. And State dinners are intimate affairs-- appropriately so--a conversation between leaders of our House and Senate and the executive branch, along with the leaders visiting from overseas--not a massive ``Let's turn out 1,000 people or more'' because of the size of this. Recognize that this is a 3.6 million-cubic-feet ballroom--about four times the volume of the White House. So State dinners certainly aren't a justification for this.

When it comes to security--well, the judge that took a look at the legality issues found that there wasn't authority for the President--in fact, this very bill being proposed by my well-intentioned colleague from Montana creates the legal authority that is lacking, and that is why it is being proposed--to be able to create that framework that makes it possible to overrule the court's ruling. But that judge did find that the security work being done below level could proceed because that part was related to the President's security.

This project is also about, in the President's mind, holding inaugurations. I am going to tell you that is probably one of the worst ideas President Trump has ever come up with--hide away the inauguration in a ballroom as opposed to doing it on The Mall.

I know that President Trump is very sensitive about the fact that a whole lot more people attended Obama's inauguration than his inauguration, so maybe he wants to see those moved inside to avoid any future embarrassment as he ponders whether he is running for a third term, which is not allowed under our Constitution. But what this type of ballroom does do--it is a massive fundraising scheme--a massive fundraising scheme. You can seat 1,000 people at once, all those people who make those massive donations and all of their friends, all those people who donate to campaigns. Oh, let's invite them to come be at this massive ballroom. But that is not a great idea.

Philip Kennicott put it this way:

Trump has previously been unable to convince the American public that the White House needs an ornate entertainment venue that would dwarf the historic mansion. Now he seeks to convince them he can't be safe without it. This suggests he plans to leave behind not just a radically transformed White House complex but a different conception of the presidency.

And what is that conception? That conception is the President has the powers of an authoritarian ruler--of a King. They have a fancy name for it; it is called a unitary executive. And the President has proceeded to utilize 10 different strategies to undermine the checks and balances of our Constitution.

But building this Louis XIV, gilded ballroom for fundraising and to symbolize that the President is a King--hell no.

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