CNN Is Looking Forward to Calling for Trump Prison Sentence Over Ballroom

Nicholas Fondacaro
May 6th, 2026 10:57 AM

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On Tuesday’s edition of The Arena, CNN host Kasie Hunt bragged that her producers were already working on a video package where they were going to call for President Trump to go to prison because of the ballroom. It was all based on a flimsy report by CNN’s Aaron Blake that falsely suggested the ballroom would cost $1 billion and was taxpayer funded. They even framed it as Trump getting a taste of his own medicine.

“The goalposts on Trump’s ballroom keep moving. Now it involves taxpayer money,” Blake proclaimed on X. According to Blake’s article, the price tag for the ballroom had popped from $400 million to $1billion because of “security” measures for the ballroom. He also suggested the money could go for the ballroom proper: “That doesn’t mean all $1 billion would necessarily be used for ballroom-related purposes.”

But that was a lie.

As Daily Signal’s national correspondent Tony Kinnett pointed out on X, the money was not for the ballroom but rather for the bunker being constructed underneath it. He also noted that the language of the legislation that funded the bunker’s construction explicitly forbade the money from going to the ballroom proper:

LIMITATION.—None of the funds made available under this section may be used for non-security elements of the East Wing Modernization Project.

 

 

Blake omitted that language in his report. He also didn’t appear to have reached out to anyone at the White House or Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) office, since he’s the author of the bill.

The truth didn’t stop Hunt and never Trumper Jonah Goldberg from falsely claiming the money was for the ballroom itself.  “So first of all, just on the math, when you say the price keeps going up, all increases from zero are in fact infinite,” Goldberg chided.

Goldberg was the first to note that Trump administration recently tried to take legal action over the overruns related to the Federal Reserve building. He quipped that The Arena would likely soon make the argument for him to go to prison and Hunt teased that they were already working on it:

GOLDBERG: They just tried to put a guy in jail for construction overruns on the cost of the Federal Reserve building. And, and now he's talking about how it's going up to $1 billion.

So like, at some point, those sound bites are going to be a next segment on The Arena where they're going to play, say, like, why shouldn't you go to jail for cost overruns?

HUNT: My producers are probably working on that right now, actually.

 

 

Goldberg went on to mock the bunker as Trump’s “Bat Cave.”

What made their fantasies about calling for Trump to go to prison (again) was the fact that their comments came immediately after their fellow panelist former Congressman Peter Meijer (R-MN) had just explained to them that the $1 billion was for the bunker, not the ballroom (click “expand”):

Let's be real. I mean, we're not just talking. The ballroom is what everyone's going to see. It's going to be the above ground portion. But this is all also an effort to have an updated presidential emergency operations center. I mean, a multi-story bunker underneath.

I think there was some challenges with talking about something that's inherently going to be relatively classified in its scope, in terms of the public facing messaging. But in that - in what was passed out of Senate Judiciary, I mean, that language was very clear around, yeah, taxpayer funds going to the security elements, going to rebuild a bunker. You know, the most recent construction, I think, was during the Obama era where they were expanding sort of the post 9/11 bunker facilities.

You know, this is something that's going to be built with an eye towards the threats today and of the future. And then the next component is going to be, yeah, we have a space to host events on the property. So, you don't have to throw up a tent.

But I don't think that's $1 billion facility just for a ballroom.

 

 

Hunt also made the snide comment to him that, “We’re probably both old enough to remember when the Republican Party was the party of fiscal responsibility.”

This author is old enough to remember when CNN used to claim they were “facts first.” Now they’re openly for putting Trump in prison first.

The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:

CNN’s The Arena
May 5, 2026
4:21:59 p.m. Eastern

(…)

HUNT: Congressman, I think you and I are the same age. We’re probably both old enough to remember when the Republican Party was the party of fiscal responsibility.

FMR. REP. PETER MEIJER (R-MN): Oh, I'm just thinking about construction, price inflation. And it's tough out there, price per square foot --

[Laughter]

HUNT: Tariffs! It's the tariffs that made the ballroom more expensive!

FMR. REP. JOE CROWLEY (D-NY): Wasn't that the Fed had --

MEIJER: Labor costs, permitting.

[Crosstalk]

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think they're about to build a moat. This is what they're doing in a turret.

MEIJER: No, I mean, let's be real. I mean, we're not just talking. The ballroom is what everyone's going to see. It's going to be the above ground portion. But this is all also an effort to have an updated presidential emergency operations center. I mean, a multi-story bunker underneath.

I think there was some challenges with talking about something that's inherently going to be relatively classified in its scope, in terms of the public facing messaging. But in that - in what was passed out of Senate Judiciary, I mean, that language was very clear around, yeah, taxpayer funds going to the security elements, going to rebuild a bunker. You know, the most recent construction, I think, was during the Obama era where they were expanding sort of the post 9/11 bunker facilities.

You know, this is something that's going to be built with an eye towards the threats today and of the future. And then the next component is going to be, yeah, we have a space to host events on the property. So, you don't have to throw up a tent.

But I don't think that's $1 billion facility just for a ballroom.

HUNT: Well, and if you're trying to explain this to the American people, Jonah.

JONAH GOLDBERG: Yeah. So first of all, just on the math, when you say the price keeps going up, all increases from zero are in fact infinite. And --

[Laughter]

And also, I mean, you, you mentioned it very briefly a second ago. They just tried to put a guy in jail for construction overruns on the cost of the Federal Reserve building. And, and now he's talking about how it's going up to $1 billion.

So like, at some point, those sound bites are going to be a next segment on The Arena where they're going to play, say, like, why shouldn't you go to jail for cost overruns?

HUNT: My producers are probably working on that right now, actually.

GOLDBERG: But I think the problem is much like the Iran war, there's a very good argument for regime change. There's a very good argument for, you know, doing something about the missile - the nuclear program. They're very good arguments for a lot of the things that Trump does in the abstract. But he reaches for the good arguments pretextually after he commits in this sort of ham-fisted way.

So like, yeah, there's a good argument for a ballroom. There's a good argument to build a new state-of-the- art Bat Cave underneath the ballroom. That's all great.

But like, he -- he lied about what it was going to cost. He lied about the rules of doing it. He bulldozed the thing in a weekend. He lied his way into the operation of Venezuela. He lied his way into the operation in Iran.

And then when the price, the -- when the bill comes in, he all of a sudden puts it on other people and says, ‘you have to be support me on this.’ And I just don't think it's smart politics.

(…)

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