Donald Trump’s ballroom was already a political problem for the president and his party, with recent polling showing 2-to-1 opposition to the endeavor, but the debate took an unexpected turn last week. Congressional Republicans unveiled a budget reconciliation package, which Democrats would be powerless to stop, that set aside $1 billion in taxpayer funds for the ballroom project with the costs to be added to the deficit.

It was at that point when Democrats, nearly all of whom had been critical of Trump’s obsession with the vanity project, started looking at this as an election-year political piñata.

In a letter to his members on Monday morning, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote, “Americans do not need a ballroom. They need relief. … Republicans keep putting Trump’s priorities ahead of working people. That is what today’s Republicans have become: Ballroom Republicans — asking working families to pay the price while Donald Trump pockets the perks.”

With this in mind, the question is what GOP lawmakers intend to do now. At this point, even they don’t appear to know for sure.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, for example, told The Hill this week that he expects the ballroom funding to be pulled from his party’s package. Many of his GOP colleagues, however, appeared dug in as members returned to Capitol Hill on Monday. The New York Times reported:

Senate Republicans on Monday defended their plan to include $1 billion for security funding for President Trump’s ballroom project as they prepared to take up a politically charged budget bill that faces stiff opposition from Democrats.

Returning to the Capitol for the first time since the components of the spending plan were made public, top Republicans said the security money was necessary given the threats to the president, and claimed that none of it would be used for the ballroom itself.

That point about none of the funds going toward the ballroom itself is not altogether true: MS NOW obtained a memo that breaks down the funding in more detail and it specifically said that $220 million of the $1 billion would be used for the ballroom.

Meanwhile, Punchbowl News reported that GOP members in competitive districts have characterized the use of public funds as a “political disaster” and have spent recent days “privately raising objections.”

I won’t pretend to know what the Republican majority might do next, but Politico reported that Secret Service Director Sean Curran agreed to appear at the Senate Republicans’ closed-door lunch on Tuesday, where he would pitch members on the $1 billion security upgrade. Watch this space.

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