"New tonight though, Washington Post is exclusive reporting that White House officials secretly awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for the construction of the East Wing ballroom. It's an unusual agreement that sidestepped typical contracting procedures designed to control costs. According to the Post, President Trump was directly involved in negotiating some of the costs for the project. This comes after recent reporting from the Post found that the project has grown to $600 million, with half of that expected to be funded by taxpayers. The president has repeatedly said it is being funded by himself and donors. And I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it. The country is not. We're donating a $400 million ballroom. Myself and donors are giving them free of charge for nothing. We did this no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever. Rich people and people are putting up the money, zero taxpayer dollars. We didn't ask for any tax money. We have no tax. This is taxpayer free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents. We are putting up $400 million to do the ballroom section of the ballroom. We are putting that up privately. Washington Post investigative reporter Jonathan O'Connell is on the byline and obtained a copy of the no-bid agreement. He joins me now. So what did you find in your reporting about how this no-bid contract was awarded? It's actually a very creative strategy, Anderson, although legally sort of dubious. There is this tiny office in the White House called the Executive Residence, which is generally for small repairs to the White House, the president and his family's home, that portion of the White House, you know, doing furnishings and interior changes. And they've used this very tiny office to contract the entire demolition and construction of the East Wing rather than using these agencies that have big contracting operations and are used to following and must follow, you know, competitive bidding. So they've used this tiny office that I had never heard of before we got into this and saw this contract to use to develop this large construction project. And because it's legally kind of questionable, they are now stuck. The construction has been paused. And you also report the president was directly involved in negotiating some of the costs for the project. How so? Yes, we are still learning more about this for certain, but the specific part that he took an involvement in according to the documents we've seen is the price of concrete because the general contractor used one of its own companies as a subsidiary. And according to the documents we've seen, the president himself helped to negotiate what the price of the concrete would be. This happened four or five days after the invasion of Iran. So obviously it was a priority for him because he spent personal time doing it. He was negotiating the price of the concrete after the after which invasion? The of Iran, the same week. Wow."