Trump’s ballroom has $330 million in donors. Trump isn’t one of them.

Good news for the East Wing’s replacement. The man who promised to chip in has finally named his price: later.

Last Thursday the Washington Post published the ballroom donor list. More than $330 million. Apple, Nvidia and the Adelson Family Foundation at $25 million each. Lockheed Martin, Microsoft and Palantir at $10 million each. Google put in $22 million through a lawsuit settlement with Trump. Who isn’t on it? Trump. When the bulldozers went in last October, he posted that the ballroom was privately funded by patriots, companies “and, yours truly.”

The next day, outside Marine One, a reporter asked if he’d actually put in his own money. “I may do that. When they run out, I’ll be there, okay?” So the generous patriot is the emergency backup donor. Like a spare tyre, if the spare tyre owned a lot of golf courses.

There’s also the “military complex” he’s bolting underneath. Two days earlier in Arizona he explained the military component for the ballroom and his planned arch: “Everything has a military component nowadays. I have to do that to satisfy my senators.” His lawyers told the Supreme Court something grander, that it’s an “integrated military complex” vital to national security. It worked: the Court let construction continue. Chief Justice Roberts, dissenting, called it “likely unlawful.”

To recap: Lockheed is paying for the ballroom, the military complex is there to calm down senators, and the president’s own check comes in once everyone else’s money runs out.