Senate parliamentarian nixes Trump’s ballroom fund in budget bill

Trump administrationSenate parliamentarian nixes Trump’s ballroom fund in budget billThe Senate official said the GOP bill needs to be reworked in order to comply with jurisdictional issues. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00The parliamentarian wrote that the bill would be subject to a 60-vote threshold to pass, meaning it can’t move forward with a simple majority as similar bills advanced using budget reconciliation.Alex Brandon / APShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 17, 2026, 12:16 AM EDTBy Frank Thorp V and Kyla GuilfoilA GOP bill seeking $1 billion for the Secret Service to help finance President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom is in jeopardy as it faces pushback from a top Senate official. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, said Saturday that the budget bill, which aims to fund ICE and Border Patrol alongside $1 billion to help fund the ballroom, needs to be rewritten to account for jurisdictional issues. “A project as complex and large in scale as Trump’s proposed ballroom necessarily involves the coordination of many government agencies which span the jurisdiction of many Senate committees,” MacDonough told Senate offices Saturday. “As drafted, the provision inappropriately funds activities outside the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee.”The parliamentarian wrote that the bill would be subject to a 60-vote threshold to pass, meaning it can’t move forward with a simple majority, unlike similar bills advanced using budget reconciliation.Budget reconciliation is a parliamentary tool used to get around the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, but it comes with restrictions on what provisions can be included.The development is a blow to the Republican bill, but it is not the end of efforts to include ballroom funding. Senate Republicans had already been redrafting the provision’s language before Saturday’s ruling based on feed...