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With just over seven months to go until the midterm elections, the US-Israeli war on Iran pushing gas prices past $4 per gallon, and the rising cost of living bringing consumer confidence to an all-time low, political observers marveled on Monday at Republican senators’ decision to center President Donald Trump’s demand for a new $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House as a top legislative goal.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) held a press conference late Monday to announce their intention to expedite a bill to the Senate floor to use public funds to pay for the construction of a secure ballroom, joining Trump in insisting that a shooting at the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday proved the project is a national security priority.

Trump has demanded the construction of the ballroom for months, ordering demolition work to begin last year as he insisted the project would be paid for entirely by private donations from companies with government contracts like Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and Google — a plan that has raised alarm over significant conflicts of interest.

The construction was halted recently after a federal court ruled the project must be approved by Congress, but an appeals court this month allowed the building to continue while it reviews the ruling.

On Monday evening, the US Department of Justice also filed a motion — which observers noted appeared to be written in the same style the president frequently uses in his social media posts — demanding that US District Judge Richard Leon dissolve his previous injunction blocking the project.

Trump Uses Correspondents Dinner Shooting to Push for Ballroom Construction

The motion started by claiming the name of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the nonprofit that sued over the ballroom construction, is “FAKE.”

“They suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly referred to as TDS,”........

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