President Trump hosted dozens of enterprise titans on Wednesday as he seeks to boost lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} so as to add a ballroom to the White House.
The visitor checklist for the East Room dinner included representatives from virtually two dozen firms, together with tech corporations like Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft and Palantir, tobacco firms Altria and Reynolds American and telecom giants T-Mobile and Comcast, in keeping with a listing offered to CBS News by the White House.Â
Other notable friends included oil magnate Harold Hamm, sugar industrialist Pepe Fanjul and Tampa Bay Buccaneers house owners Edward and Shari Glazer.
The cryptocurrency business — which the Trump administration has sought nearer ties to — was well-represented on the occasion, together with Coinbase, Ripple, Tether and the Winklevoss twins, who based the Gemini cryptocurrency alternate.
It’s not clear what number of of Wednesday’s roughly 128 attendees have already opened their wallets for the $200 million ballroom venture, however Mr. Trump thanked the individuals within the room for giving “great quantities of cash.” He stated the associated fee has been “totally taken care of.”
“So lots of you could have been actually, actually beneficiant,” he stated. “A few you’re sitting right here, saying, ‘Sir, would $25 million be applicable?’ I stated, ‘I’ll take it.'”
John McDonnell / AP 
The Trump administration introduced plans so as to add a 90,000-square-foot ballroom to the East Wing over the summer season, with building breaking floor final month. The administration has referred to as it a long-overdue growth that can enable the White House to extra simply host main capabilities like state dinners. The president stated Wednesday the ballroom can have area for as much as 999 friends and bulletproof glass home windows on all sides.
The White House says the venture will probably be financed fully by non-public donors, fairly than taxpayers, setting off a fundraising push, CBS News reported final month. Several firms had pledged $5 million or extra, together with Google — which agreed to donate $22 million final month as a way to settle a lawsuit from Mr. Trump over his suspension from YouTube after Jan. 6, 2021 — Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, Palantir and NextEra Energy. The White House is working with the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall to boost cash.
Donors are eligible for some type of “recognition,” presumably within the type of having their names etched in brick or stone, sources informed CBS News final month.
The fundraising marketing campaign has drawn some criticism.
“Do they assume we’re dumb sufficient to imagine they’re giving their cash away free of charge?” requested Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in an X put up Wednesday.
The ballroom is a part of a litany of renovation initiatives pursued by Mr. Trump since returning to the White House earlier this yr. He put in large new flagpoles on the grounds, turned the Rose Garden right into a patio, redecorated the Oval Office with gold-colored furnishings and put in a “Presidential Walk of Fame” with images of his predecessors — besides former President Joe Biden, who’s represented by a picture of an autopen.
And in latest days, he has teased constructing a triumphal arch in Virginia, throughout the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Trump confirmed a mannequin of the arch to Wednesday’s dinner friends and displayed it throughout an Oval Office occasion earlier within the day. Asked by CBS News senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe who the arch is for, the president responded: “Me.”
“Going to be stunning,” he stated.
John McDonnell / AP 
