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Sunday, May 24, 2026

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By Steve Holland, Andy Sullivan, Richard Cowan and Nandita Bose WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) – Standing in front of the White House ballroom construction site, U.S. President Donald Trump appealed for patience from Americans struggling with soaring gas prices as he sought to justify the cost of a project critics call a vanity effort. “This is peanuts,” he said on Tuesday in an apparent reference to the economic damage inflicted on the U.S. by the Iran war. “I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. It won’t be much longer.” The moment crystallized concerns among some in his Republican Party, who worry that the billionaire president’s focus on the ballroom appears insensitive as Americans struggle to fill their gas tanks ahead of
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By Steve Holland, Andy Sullivan, Richard Cowan and Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) – Standing in front of the White House ballroom construction site, U.S. President Donald Trump appealed for patience from Americans struggling with soaring gas prices as he sought to justify the cost of a project critics call a vanity effort.
“This is peanuts,” he said on Tuesday in an apparent reference to the economic damage inflicted on the U.S. by the Iran war. “I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. It won’t be much longer.”
The moment crystallized concerns among some in his Republican Party, who worry that the billionaire president’s focus on the ballroom appears insensitive as Americans struggle to fill their gas tanks ahead of November’s midterm elections.
A Reuters review of Trump’s public comments shows he has mentioned the ballroom – either via speeches, social media posts, or in comments to reporters – at least 40 times this year, including nine times this month alone. By comparison, he mentioned it 35 times in all of 2025. 
He is prone to launching into sales pitches for the ballroom at any moment, whether talking to reporters on Air Force One, speaking to guests in the Oval Office or posting on his Truth Social platform.
A White House official rejected Democrats’ contention that the ballroom is a vanity project.
“This is about legacy, not vanity,” the official said. “The president is deeply passionate about this and wants to get it done.”
It is hard to quantify how many times Trump has talked about the economy, but as gas prices have spiraled, he has repeatedly played down the economic impact of the war, counseling patience and offering little acknowledgement of Americans’ financial strain.
“I don’t ⁠think about Americans’ financial situation,” he said earlier this month in a viral off-the-cuff comment about the war’s economic impact that was seized on by Democrats. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
SOME REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS SAY BALLROOM IS A DISTRACTION 
The Reuters review shows that the ballroom, reconstruction of the Washington Reflecting Pool and plans for a 250-foot Independence Arch in the capital are top of mind for a president whose second term has been dominated by legacy-building projects.
Even amid crises and diplomatic summits, Trump has kept the ballroom at the forefront. Within hours of an apparent assassination attempt at a Washington hotel, he used the incident to argue for building one. After his high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump posted on Truth Social that the trip reinforced his case.
“China has a Ballroom, and so should the U.S.A.!” Trump wrote alongside a photo of him and Xi outside Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People.
In Republican-led focus groups, however, voters are
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