Trump Begging For $1 Billion From Taxpayers For Ballroom? He Was Never Paying

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1:07All right, I'm joined today by Waj Ali. He is tired, overweight, and a middle-aged father of three who drives a Honda Odyssey minivan and shops at Costco. He's a recovering attorney and playwright, and he even once co-hosted an Al Jazeera America's The Stream. He also is a former New York Times and CNN contributor. Currently, he edits the Left Hook Substack where I was a guest yesterday and we like to MAGA bash together, don't we, Waj?

1:40Wajahat Ali:We enjoy it. We love it. It fills the heart, if you will. It's therapeutic. It's Therapy. Okay. The Trump, we always know he's been lying about this ballroom, right? And first, it was going to be all of these donors. His friends were going to pay for it. And now he is proposing that a billion dollars be spent by the American taxpayer. Pop this up. Senate Republicans, AKA the biggest puss boys in America, have introduced a budget bill that would allocate$1 billion in taxpayer funds to Trump's ballroom project. Waj. I want to say ballroom in quotation marks, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but last time I checked, Jen, and I don't know much about interior design.

2:32Wajahat Ali:That's your forte. I defer to you in pumps. But when was the last time someone needed$1 billion for a gaudy ballroom? You tell me. You're the expert. Never, right? Never. Yeah, never. So I put ballroom in quotation marks because clearly something else is happening here. I always called it a ballroom slash bunker. And I'm really curious what's happening underneath the ballroom and why all these tech companies are investing. Because the first$400 million, first it was$200 million, then it was$300 million, then it was$400 million. And it's all these tech companies, all the metas and all the NVIDIAs that are giving them money.

3:04Wajahat Ali:So I'm like, that's very interesting. Why would they be giving money? Well, maybe because they want a court favor with this quit pro quo, completely compromised president, right? We'll give you stupid money for your ballroom. You give us contracts. You give us military industrial complex contracts. Palantir will build a surveillance state, right? NVIDIA with its chips, OpenAI, sure. But then more and more I think about it, I'm like, hmm, another person had a bunker. That person was Hitler, right? So I'm thinking, why would you need$1.4 billion for a ballroom? First and foremost, he's desecrated the people's house, the White House.

3:39Wajahat Ali:These reeks are perfectly fine with it. Secondly,$400 million. And now he goes back on his province and says, hey, taxpayers, guess what? We have no money for SNAP. We had to kill USID, which, by the way, has led to 500 ,000 deaths, mainly the killing of children all around the world, the most impoverished, marginalized kids. You can't afford oil. You can't afford groceries. We're going to give tax cuts to the billionaires, but we're going to take$1 trillion out of Medicaid. But guess what? Y 'all are going to have to pay$25 billion for an unwittable illegal war in Iran. And now I want$1 billion for my ballroom.

4:15Jen, make it make sense, because it don't make sense to me. No, it doesn't make sense. And I had Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the leading scholar in the country on authoritarians, autocrats, fascists. And she said that autocrats get fixated with this stuff because they want a safe place, because they are jacked up on fear. And their number one goal is self-preservation. And so his ego took a huge hit when Joe Biden beat him. And Marine One came and picked him up. And he tried to throw temper tantrum and send all the rubes down to beat up cops, take a shit in the Capitol, et cetera. It didn't work. And they tried to hang Mike Pence.

4:56Mike Pence was rescued, taken off, and Trump was so humiliated. And so now he's thinking, I have to do, I have to protect my ego and I have to do everything in my power to prevent this sort of narcissistic injury from happening again. Thus, he is fixated, laser focused on the ballroom. Here's a clip of a montage of Trump pathologically lying about the cost of the ballroom. Play the clip. I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it. The country's not. We're donating a$400 million bull room. Myself and donors are giving them free of charge for nothing. We did this, no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever.

5:35Rich people and people are putting up the money. Zero taxpayer dollars. I think it'll cost$250 million and it will be, I think, the finest. It's about$300 million. Approximately$400 million. I think I'll do it for less. But it's$400 million. I should do it for less. I will do it for less, but just in case I say 400. This morning he went on Lie Social and posted that the ballroom is, quote, ahead of schedule and under budget. What are your thoughts on that, Waj? It's going to be the best ballroom, generally the greatest ballroom. It's a ballroom that will make America great again. You're going to love the ballroom.

6:14I'll never invite you all to the ballroom because you are rubes and you're never going to get invited to Mar-a-Lago. I just want your votes. I love the stupid people. I love the ignorant people. I love the uneducated people. I'm your champion. I'm your warrior. It's a grifter.

6:27Wajahat Ali:It's a grifter who literally, like you said, fantastic clip, by the way, to your producers who compile that. He's lying. And it's a very unpopular ballroom. The latest polls came out. The majority of Americans hate this ballroom. They hate this war. He's negative double digits on the economy, negative double digits on the cost of living, negative double digits on foreign policy. Majority of Americans want the release of the Epstein files. Oh, by the way, who is mentioned more in the Epstein files than Jeffrey Epstein? I know. Donald Trump. Yes. Yes. Yeah. You are an A student, Jen. I knew it. Donald Trump.

6:56Wajahat Ali:Donald Trump and Howard Ludnick's in there also. Look. Begging, begging to go to the island. To Ruth's point, yes, I think this is a man who, with narcissism, much like the pharaoh, he wants to live forever. So he wants to just pee on everything, right? So he's like, I'll have a ballroom that'll outlast me. Did you see the mock-up with the 15-foot golden statue in the Trump library, right? He wants to put the Trump White House. He wants to make sure that he lives forever. Secondly, I think he is afraid. he realizes and he said this publicly that if Democrats win the House and the Senate, they keep saying, these Republicans keep saying, well, we might go to jail, which is a really interesting thing, Jen, because I've never said that before, right?

7:42Like, why would anyone say, well, you know, if the Republicans win, I'm going to go to jail. Have you done something? Have you done some illegal shit? Right. And he just said yesterday, I'm going to stay for another eight, nine years. I might just stay for another eight, nine years. Today, he just said, these cities, these Democratic cities have asked me to send federal troops. He's never ruled out the Insurrection Act, Jen. I just want to bring some receipts. He's never ruled out using the Insurrection Act. This is a man who just said he's going to stay for eight, nine years.

8:09Wajahat Ali:He's a man who's selling 2028 merch. He's a man who just has asked for a billion dollars for a ballroom slash bunker. He's a man who's trying to pass the SAVE Act. He's a man who's raided Fulton County. He's a man who's told Republicans he will take over, asking them to take over state elections. We just had the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Now, you tell me, Jen, with everything that I just said, plus the$1.4 billion ballroom slash bunker, which Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the scholar of authoritarianism, has said that former dictators in the past have created their own little bunkers, right, due to fear and paranoia.

8:43Does this sound like a man who is going to leave legally and peacefully, Jen Welch? No. I saw how this ends. I saw this in Trump 1.0. We all saw it. And I think what's so frustrating about being an American right now is we all saw that. We all heard Mark Esper and General Milley and all of the other people come out and say, this man is a fascist through and through. He has no respect for the military. He has no respect for the rule of law. He can never get back in. Trump would say probably, I want generals, the same generals like Hitler had. And the American people knew this and they voted for him again, but I get it.

9:24The American public has a stupid problem. I can accept that. Okay. I can accept that. Where I get so mad is Joe Biden and Merrick Garland, that they didn't take this seriously, that Joe Biden and say, listen up Merrick, Mitch McConnell fucked you and that was bullshit and I'm going to let you be attorney general and then I'm going to step back but you better go after all the way to the top everybody who funded colluded and planned this January 6th interaction because you know who else would have been caught up in all of this Jenny Thomas and then who would have to recuse themselves from all of the cases they rule on all the time corrupt Clarence Thomas and so the fact that our party and the party that I vote with incubated this.

10:11And when we say, oh, we believe in the rule of law and all this stuff, and you just let this guy get a pass, of course he's not going to leave. And as we're gearing up for the 2026 midterms and Trump is still focused on losing the 2020 election, let's pop this up. The Trump Justice Department has demanded the identities of every worker who staffed the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, according to court records reviewed by the New York Times. The demand targets employees of Fulton County elections, as well as volunteer poll workers who likely numbered in the thousands during the 2020 election.

10:57Wajahat Ali:watch the fragile broken fickle ego of a narcissist a man who lives in a deluded reality the emperor wears no clothes and he's surrounded by reeks who say oh my god you have six pack abs look at that 12 inch penis that you have oh my god look at those cankles made of achilles's strength and muscles right this is what we're living in the emperor has no clothes this is a person who is literally promoting the lies that he won an election that he lost. And furthermore, Jen, we can sit there and laugh at his delusion, but it has, like you mentioned, led to what I recall, a violent insurrection. Those lies led to a violent insurrection.

11:37Wajahat Ali:Donald Trump then pardoned those insurrectionists, including people with violent backgrounds, a person who was a pedophile, a person who was a neo-Nazi, right? People tried to assassinate Mike Pence, the most white Christian straight man on earth. Even his whiteness and Christianity could not save him that day. They came to kill Nancy Pelosi. Now they want to kill Liz Cheney, who was a number three. That same man has been obsessed for the past six years with that election. And furthermore, he incited a violent insurrection. And based upon that lie, which he has still maintained, Jen, he has done an FBI raid on Fulton County, right?

12:11So again, to my point, a person who is still obsessed with the election that he lost, who incited a violent insurrection, who pardoned the insurrectionists. Do y 'all think he's going to leave legally and peacefully? And I have to say

12:24Wajahat Ali:something. I'm glad you mentioned it. I think Joe Biden, and we have to be honest about this, folks, I know you and I get heat from some Bluenon people. I call them Bluenon. People are in type of like a Democratic Party cult. I try to be very fair. Three sins of Joe Biden. The first sin is Merrick Garland. That's the sin that haunts us to this day. He chose the wrong man for the job. He played at civil. You can't do patty cake with fascists. You can't play footsie with fascists. You have to crush them. He should have just brought in a brawler, someone who put on brass knuckles and literally just followed the law.

12:56And had he done that, Jen, it infuriates me that a convicted criminal who inside of violent insurrection, who still lies, who still lies about the election that he lost and pardoned all the insurrectionists, not to mention, oh, I don't know, all these money launderers and business partners like CZ of Binance. That guy never saw the inside of a courtroom. That guy never saw the inside of a jail cell. That man had never had the bracelets on him. That man got reelected to office because Joe Biden, Democrats, sorry to say this, brought the wrong guy, Merrick Garland.

13:31Wajahat Ali:The second sin is he should not have run again. He totally hamstrung Kamala Harris, who only had like, what, two and a half months. And the third sin, which still haunts the Democrats, and all the polls show it, Jen, you and I have talked about it, Gaza. The fact that Joe Biden was completely complicit with Nanyahu in the Gaza genocide. But now look at it. Now you're seeing an unhinged, completely unrestrained, desperate. This is what's so dangerous. He's desperate. He's falling in the polls. He knows they're going to get shellacked in the midterms. So a desperate, paranoid, delusional, dying Trump is like a cornered New York City sewer rat.

14:10Wajahat Ali:And I've always said, no disrespect to sewer rats, that Donald Trump is the type of sewer rat who will chew through anything and everyone to stay in power. He will burn the world down to stay in power and to stay alive, Jen. Sorry for my rant. No, I love it. That's why you're here. And so you just brought up the sin of Gaza. And I want to get your reaction to a video that I found very disturbing. And Kylie, you can start playing it. This is Ben Gavir, and he's in Benjamin Netanyahu's government. And I guess it's his birthday. And his wife brought him a cake with a noose, on a birthday cake with a noose around it, which is just really homicidal, sadistic, genocidal, really disturbing.

14:52And Ben Gavir is also the same one that celebrated when they passed the death penalty for Palestinian hostages that they have. And he wore that day in the Knesset. He wore a noose. This reminds me as a student of history when I studied about slavery in the United States, this use of nooses and this entitlement of killing people based on this racial propaganda that people in the South propagandized in the United States. And now this is happening. And Israel, what's your take on that? 2026, this is our ally. Just how anti-democratic and uncivilized and just depraved that shit is.

15:40Wajahat Ali:It's genocidal sociopathic behavior on a public scale done by an ethno-supremacist who fears no accountability and who has completely dehumanized the Palestinian people. And folks, Itmar Ben-Gavir is not a minor figure. He is part and parcel of Benjamin Nenya, whose coalition, him and Smotrich are outright open, proud, genocidal sociopaths. They're Jewish supremacists. They say, we want everything, river to the sea. And speaking about that golden noose, he had a golden noose lapel when the Israeli Knesset passed that law that Palestinians, and it's only going to be Palestinians because of the apartheid conditions, can be hung.

16:19Wajahat Ali:So not only did he have the golden noose lapel, they got the golden noose birthday cake, and then he popped cheap champagne. This is a man who lives in the West Bank. I've been there in the Jewish section of Hebron. If anyone, I always tell people as an American, if you're like, I'm so confused, I got no dog in this fight, I gotcha. Go there. Go there and see it for yourself. Go and talk to everyone. Go talk to Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem. Go talk to the Druze. go to East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem, go talk to the Palestinian citizens of Israel, go to the West Bank, go to the Jewish part of Hebron, then go to the Palestinian part of Hebron.

16:56Wajahat Ali:I'm telling you, Jen, you'll be horrified. It's the heart of darkness. It's apartheid. It is inexcusable. It's a living sin. Itmar Ben-Gavir lives in the Jewish section of Hebron, where, by the way, there is this kind of, you know, that they've made this type of idolatry to Baruch Goldstein, the American settler who opened up a machine gun fire and killed two dozen Muslims. He actually praises that guy, the murderer, Baruch Goldstein. This is who is in the cabinet of Israel and the Netanyahu government. These people are the leaders, and it just shows you that country has gone completely mad. And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, why the F are my taxpayer dollars as an American going to support this regime, which is celebrating literally a genocide, an occupation, and apartheid policies, and has displaced more than a million people in Lebanon.

17:52No one's talking about what's happening in Lebanon. They've displaced a million people in Lebanon. They've killed more than 2 ,000 people. Jen, make it make sense to me. I can't. I can't make it make sense because we're in the nothing makes sense, what the fuck is going on era of being on this planet right now. But the good news is that I do think that we're entering the autocratic backfire era of all of this, where Trump's numbers are plummeting. Support for Benjamin Netanyahu and his Israeli genocidal government are plummeting. Both parties, left, right, and center. Americans are fed up with that.

18:29And there does seem to be bipartisanship outrage about the carpet bombing of civilian areas, the killing of children and innocent civilians. It's really, really disturbing stuff. And I think there's been as horrible as it is to fixate on what MAGA is doing and all the alleged victory laps that they take. I feel like there's more of us and I feel like we're in also there is a big awakening that's happening. But I want to get your take on this next news story. Pop this up. Washington Post, a group of House Democrats is urging the Trump administration to acknowledge Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons program, a move that would abandon decades of U.S.

19:13policy, but confirm what has been an open secret among intelligence officials.

19:20Wajahat Ali:I mean, it's the world's worst kept secret, like Lindsey Graham being a closeted homosexual, allegedly. Lindsey Graham, he's like, Lindsey's like, come on now, Israel can't have a nuclear weapon. Come on, y 'all, this is just mean. Stop being messy. Israel doesn't have a nuclear weapon. The fact that, sorry, I had to do that. We have to mock Lindsey Graham, who was a grown man who goes to Disneyland by himself. Yeah. Israel has a nuclear weapon. Everyone knows this. All right. It's the world's worst kept secret. But the fact that we have to play taboo, I mean, this is what it's so maddening, the type of mental gymnastics that we have to engage in over this one country, Jen.

20:06Wajahat Ali:The fact that we, our taxpayer dollars, go to Israel that commits this genocide, this occupation. The fact that we cannot ask these questions of Israel, but we can ask it of any other question, right? The fact that Iran can have a nuclear weapon. We know Israel has a nuclear weapon. And all House Democrats are saying is, hey, y 'all, we all know it has a nuclear weapon. Can we just like, you know, can you just come out of the closet, Israel? Just Lindsay and Israel just come out of the closet. I completely agree. Waj, I think that those two are intricately and intimately linked. And I would like to see Sir Lady Graham's Mossad file because I'm sure it is the juiciest shit on the planet.

20:45Waj, thank you so much for joining me for some world-class therapeutic MAGA bashing. And I will see you again soon, my friend.

20:52Wajahat Ali:Thank you so much.