President Trump’s controversial plan to build an enormous ballroom adjacent to—and larger than—the White House just ground to a halt.
A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled on Friday that Trump’s ballroom construction isn’t lawful and must stop. In a 2-1 opinion, Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia asserted that “each president is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence,” thus Trump lacks the power to unilaterally rebuild the White House complex to his liking.
“The President has no—and claims no—constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people,” the two judges, appointed by Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, wrote. Judge Neomi Rao, appointed during Trump’s first term, dissented. “We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for,” the majority opinion stated.
Friday’s order reinforces an earlier injunction attached to a lawsuit from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued to halt the project last year. The privately funded nonprofit argued that only Congress can legally approve of a major makeover to the White House’s structures, a position that the pair of judges who issued Friday’s ruling were sympathetic to. The ruling will put any above-ground construction on ice, but the Trump administration will have 14 days to appeal the decision.
So far, the threat of legal speed bumps hasn’t slowed Trump’s big teardown. Construction is already well underway, and recent photos from the site of the now-demolished former East Wing show a massive construction project very much in progress.
Trump’s shifting ballroom story
As the courts scramble to catch up to the construction scene at the seat of American democracy, the public still can’t get any straight answers about the project’s details. Trump initially claimed that the plan to install a massive ballroom wouldn’t involve any demolition, but he quietly authorized the building’s full destruction late last year.
“It won’t interfere with the current building. . . . It’ll be near it, but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” Trump said last summer. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles reassured critics that the president would work closely with organizations focused on historical preservation for the complex’s makeover.
The demo took place in October to the shock of many Americans concerned about the optics of Trump’s decision to level and remake a major portion of the “People’s House.”
Trump’s justification for a ballroom large enough to dwarf the White House itself has also changed over time. The $200 million proposal initially focused on the appeal of a huge event space to rival Mar-a-Lago, the lavish Palm Beach, Florida, club where Trump entertains friends and allies. As the president encountered more resistance to his plan to erect a massive gold-trimmed party room, Trump and his legal team pivoted to argue that the construction project is actually necessary for national security.
Trump responded to the court’s decision Friday by claiming that the project is actually a key piece of military infrastructure designed to include a medical facility and a hospital, drone-proof ceilings, missile-resistant steel, and “top secret military facilities.” In a new Truth Social post, the president called on the Supreme Court to intervene and get his construction plans back on track. “The entire Complex, Military and all, is largely built, fabricated, and paid for,” Trump claimed. “This unjust decision must be overturned by the Supreme Court in its entirety.”
The full plan, now expected to cost north of $400 million, is reportedly being bankrolled largely by private donors and corporations seeking to win favor with the current administration. That’s just another red flag in a project littered with them, but one the president has often pointed to as a selling point that will save taxpayers from footing the bill. In spite of the private money pouring in—and its public story—the Trump administration quietly steered more than $350 million in federal funds earmarked for the Secret Service toward the ballroom construction project in June.