Republicans expected to abandon $1B security proposal for White House
and Trump's ballroom
[May 21, 2026]
By MARY CLARE JALONICK, KEVIN FREKING and JOEY CAPPELLETTI
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leaders are expected to abandon a
proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex
and President Donald Trump’s ballroom on Thursday after members of their
own party questioned the timing and the lack of detail in the Secret
Service request.
Pressured by the White House, Republicans have tried to add the money to
a roughly $70 billion bill to restore funding to U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. But the security proposal met
with backlash from some GOP lawmakers who are questioning the cost and
how the taxpayer dollars would be used.
The bill’s text has not yet been released, but the Senate hopes to pass
it this week and send it to the House before leaving for a weeklong
Memorial Day recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.,
acknowledged “ongoing vote issues” on Wednesday as leaders tired to
measure Republican support, as well as “ongoing parliamentarian issues”
as they try to figure out what will be allowed in the bill under the
chamber’s rules.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Wednesday that the bill would be “back to
square one” without the security money because “the votes are not
there.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to
the bill was a “bad idea” and he does not think there is enough backing
to pass it, even if the cost were reduced.
The wrangling comes as Democrats have criticized Republicans for trying
to fund Trump’s ballroom when voters are concerned about basic
affordability issues — and as some GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly
frustrated with Trump. Several GOP senators have spoken out against the
administration’s $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate
Trump’s allies who believe they have been persecuted, and many were
upset by the president’s endorsement Tuesday of Texas Attorney General
Ken Paxton in the party primary runoff next week against Sen. John
Cornyn.
“There’s always a consequence with taking on United States senators,”
Thune said Wednesday. The president “obviously has his favorites and
people he wants to endorse and that’s his prerogative. But what we have
to deal with up here is moving the agenda, and obviously that can become
slightly more complicated.”
Republicans could set parameters on Trump's settlement fund
The “anti-weaponization" fund, part of a settlement that resolves
Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of
his tax returns, has unexpectedly become one of the main complications
in the bill. Democrats said they would force votes to block it or place
restrictions on it.
Democrats have an opening because Republicans are trying to pass the
immigration enforcement bill through a complicated budget process that
requires a long series of amendment votes. Democrats are considering
multiple amendments, potentially to block that new fund outright or to
ban any payments to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers
in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Those amendments, along with others, could pass as a growing number of
Republicans have voiced reservations about the fund. So Republicans are
now discussing their own last-minute additions to head that off,
potentially placing some parameters on the settlement and who could
receive compensation, according to two people with knowledge of the
private discussions who requested anonymity to discuss them.
Thune — who said Tuesday that he is “not a big fan” of the settlement
and doesn't see a purpose for it —- said Wednesday that any new language
potentially putting restrictions on the settlement is “a work in
progress."
It's unclear how any Senate Republican changes would be received in the
House, even as some Republicans there have also criticized the
settlement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that the House will
pass the bill “whatever form it takes.”
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The Ballroom construction site can be seen as President Donald Trump
tours the area at the White House, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Tensions rise between Senate and White House
As Republicans challenged the settlement and parts of his agenda, Trump
unloaded on the Senate in a social media post.
He urged Republicans to fire the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth
MacDonough, who said over the weekend that parts of the $1 billion
security proposal cannot remain in the ICE and Border Patrol bill. Trump
also renewed his long-standing calls for the Senate to pass the SAVE
Act, a Republican bill that would require all voters to prove U.S.
citizenship, and to end the Senate filibuster.
Republicans need to “get smart and tough," Trump said, or “you’ll all be
looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!”
While they have been loyal to Trump on most issues, Senate Republicans
have resisted his repeated calls — even in his first term — to kill the
filibuster, which triggers a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
Hanging over the growing GOP rift is Trump’s surprise endorsement of
Paxton. That intervention has Republican senators privately fuming that
it could cost them their majority in November as they view the
incumbent, Cornyn, as the better candidate in the November general
election.
Secret Service request falters as Republicans want more detail
Under the Secret Service’s request, about $220 million would fund
security improvements related to the ballroom. The rest would go for a
new screening center for visitors, training and other security measures.
Tillis said the bill should not have included the other security
improvements “because it’s just giving everybody the ‘billion-dollar
ballroom.'"
Several other Republicans in the House and Senate have questioned the
request, and senators left a briefing with the director of the Secret
Service last week saying they needed a lot more information.
People “can’t afford groceries and gasoline and healthcare, and we’re
going to do a billion dollars for a ballroom?” asked Louisiana Sen. Bill
Cassidy, who lost reelection in his GOP primary on Saturday after Trump
endorsed one of his opponents.
Left in the bill is the money for ICE and Border Patrol, which Democrats
have blocked for months in protest of the Trump administration's
immigration enforcement crackdown.
Democrats demanded reforms for the agencies, but negotiations with the
White House yielded little progress. So Republicans are using the
complicated budget maneuver called reconciliation — the same process
that allowed them to pass Trump's tax and spending cuts bill last year —
to fund the agencies through the end of Trump's term with a simple
majority and no Democratic votes.
Still, passage requires signoff from the parliamentarian and unity from
Republicans.
“We're working on it,” Thune said as he left the Capitol on Wednesday
evening.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Stephen Groves contributed to
this report.
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