The White House reportedly will be submitting plans for President Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom to a federal planning commission later this month, after the East Wing of the White House has already been demolished and as the president replaces the project’s top architect.

“The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the White House itself, at nearly double the size, and President Donald Trump has said it will accommodate 999 people,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

Critics blasted the latest news.

“Let me get this straight,” wrote U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in response to the news. “Trump has a plan for a new ballroom, but barely has a concept of a plan to lower the cost of health care?”

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“Millions are losing health care, but hey, a ballroom! Unbelievable,” declared U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA).

“It seems like the Trump White House is working harder on constructing a new White House Ballroom than averting huge spikes in monthly premiums for 20 million Americans next year,” observed Brendan Duke of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Those sentiments align with a new study from Navigator Research about how some Americans in six Senate battleground states feel about President Donald Trump’s focus.

“The wealthy are seen as benefitting from a rigged system,” Navigator reported on its findings, “and politicians are seen as not getting it. Many view President Trump as particularly out of touch, with his ballroom project as key evidence.”

“Trump is seen as out of touch with working class people, with several citing his ballroom project as a proofpoint,” Navigator added.

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The study noted that focus group participants “are struggling mightily to afford the basics – like dog food or energy bills – and see no real sign of the situation improving.”

Navigator also cited comments from focus group participants who shared a variety of concerns, including about the cost of living — and the president’s ballroom.

“I see the president building a ballroom when there’s people that can’t feed their families,” said a Michigan woman, described as a “weak Democrat.”

A woman in New Hampshire, also a weak Democrat, shared, “I blame Trump. He’s greedy, he wants to make money for him and his rich friends. They are throwing Americans aside, cutting, SNAP,” she said of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “Everything’s gone to the wayside so that the rich can get richer.”

“I’m scared,” said a New Hampshire woman, an independent. “I’m scared. I’m scared of us losing our healthcare, of him not getting the care that he needs, and me not being able to provide for my family, even though I went to school and got a career to do so.”

A New Hampshire woman described as a weak Democrat said, “I think the economy’s going to tank because when we all lose healthcare starting in January, or most of us like me, I’m going to lose it in January, what is that going to do to the economy? People can’t afford to buy anything now. It’s going to just kill it.”

“How about a ballroom?” asked a Maine woman who was described as an independent. “A billion dollars. How much was it? $5 billion, $3 billion or something? Do we really need a ballroom, ladies? Are we going to go to a f – – dance?…They’re all out for themselves. ‘Let’s do the ballroom. Let’s do stuff that don’t need to be done and screw the American people.’”

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This is “the golden age of America, because we are doing better than we’ve ever done as a country,” President Donald Trump declared last month, standing before a backdrop emblazoned with “The Golden Age,” as he promoted a central theme of his administration.

On the White House’s social media page on X it declares, “The Golden Age of America Begins Right Now.”

“The Golden Age of American business has arrived,” the White House also said in October.

“This is indeed the Golden Age of America,” President Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in September.

But the economic numbers paint a more complicated picture.

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Inflation is persistent, most recently at 3%, and has generally trended upward every month since April when Trump announced his tariff program. This, despite the president promising there is “virtually no inflation,” and having campaigned on ending inflation “on day one.”

Consumer sentiment has fallen to a near record low, Bloomberg News reported last month, noting that views of personal finances are “the dimmest since 2009, and consumers remain frustrated about high prices and weakening incomes.”

“Consumers are anxious about the high cost of living and job security, with the probability of personal job loss climbing to the highest since July 2020,” Bloomberg added.

On Thursday, those fears were supported by a new report from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, that found layoffs this year have topped 1.1 million — the highest since, coincidentally, 2020, when Trump was also president.

“It’s only the sixth time since 1993 that announced job cuts through the month of November have surpassed 1.1 million,” NBC News reported on Thursday.

U.S.-based employers announced 71,321 job cuts just in November, Challenger reported. NBC noted it is “the highest total for the month of November since 2022.”

“Tariffs,” CNBC added, “were cited as the driver of more than 2,000 cuts in November and nearly 8,000 year to date.”

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Some experts are now talking about “stagflation.”

“We’re seeing the early stages of what economists call ‘stagflation’ —  the ‘flation’ part is inflation, and you’ve all felt that at the grocery store,” economist Justin Wolfers explained last month. “The ‘stag’ part is stagnation, which is, we’ve got rising unemployment and slower economic growth than we otherwise would have.”

And in October, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said 22 U.S. states are already in a recession, Moneywise reported.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans this month are seeing their health care premiums for next year jump sharply — with some plans reported to be doubling or even tripling. And President Trump last month predicted that tariff payments will soon “skyrocket.”

“Foreclosures are surging,” CBS News reported last month, “as U.S. homeowners grapple with rising costs.” So are auto repossessions.

ABC News in November reported that “Americans’ household debt levels – including mortgages, car loans, credit cards and student loans – are now at a new record high.”

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday insisted that the “best days are ahead of us,” just hours after a sharply critical report charged that some “House Republican women are in open revolt” against him.

Speaking from inside the U.S. Capitol, Johnson on Thursday told reporters, “steady at the wheel, everybody,” and, “it’s going to be fine. Our best days are ahead of us. Americans are going to be feeling a lot better in the early part of next year,” according to Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman.

“Speaker Mike Johnson is staring down a revolt from House Republican women,” NBC News reported, adding: “a number of high-profile Republican women are fleeing the House for other opportunities, weighing retirement or quitting Congress early, fueling some concern that GOP women’s ranks could be depleted in the next Congress.”

Politico this week described Johnson’s House of Representatives as “spinning out of control.”

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Suggesting that House Republicans “can’t stand each other,” NOTUS added that “rank-and-file Republicans are increasingly frustrated with their leadership — and much of that frustration is spilling out into the open.”

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene  (R-GA), whose resignation from Congress shocked the political sphere, told NOTUS, “My bills which reflect many of President Trump’s executive orders … just sit collecting dust. That’s how it is for most members of Congress’s bills, the Speaker never brings them to the floor for a vote.”

NBC News cited action taken by U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), filing a discharge petition on banning congressional stock trading, as an effort to “go around Johnson and force a floor vote.”

Publicly, Luna expressed that she is “frustrated” and “pissed” — while also calling Johnson “a good guy.”

Apart from Greene’s broadsides against Johnson, perhaps the most publicly extreme attack on Johnson has been from a member of his own leadership team.

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“Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of House Republican Leadership, not only signed on to Luna’s petition but also publicly unloaded on Johnson over an unrelated issue in the national defense bill, suggesting in a series of social media posts that Johnson lied about the matter,” NBC noted.

Stefanik’s feud with Johnson was so damaging that President Donald Trump on Tuesday night had to intervene.

“After a productive discussion I had last night with President Trump and Speaker Johnson, the provision requiring Congressional disclosure when the FBI opens counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office will be included in the IAA/NDAA bill on the floor,” Stefanik declared on Wednesday. “This is a significant legislative win delivered against the illegal weaponization of the deep state.”

Stefanik reportedly had threatened to tank the must-pass national defense bill.

Politico’s Jason Beeferman reported on Wednesday that Stefanik’s “victory (and sudden peace) in her public fight” with the House Speaker “comes after she told me last night that Johnson ‘has catastrophic, plummeting support among Republican voters.’”

Axios reported that “Stefanik’s stance sets up another test of Johnson’s ability to hold together his razor-thin majority.”

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), “has told people she is so frustrated” with Johnson, “and sick of the way he has run the House — particularly how women are treated there — that she is planning to huddle with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress,” The New York Times reported. Mace, who is running for governor, adamantly denied she is considering retiring from Congress early.

According to NBC, two House Republican women “said that they feel they have been passed over for opportunities, that their priorities don’t always get taken as seriously under Johnson’s leadership and that they believe that could be driving some of the exits and public fights with him.”

“We aren’t taken seriously,” one of the women said. “You have women who are very accomplished, very successful, who have earned the merit, who aren’t given the time of the day.”

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