A federal judge presses pause
Donald Trump’s plan for a 999-person, $400 million ballroom at the White House has been blocked by a federal judge, after months of construction work that has already gutted roughly a third of the iconic residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Because apparently even the White House still has paperwork.
In a 35-page decision, Judge Richard Leon rejected the administration’s argument that the president has broad authority to alter the building however he wants. “The President of the United States is the custodian of the White House for future generations of presidents. He is not, however, its owner,” Leon wrote. He added that “no law comes close to conferring on the president the authority he claims.”
A project Trump has been selling hard
The ruling is a setback for Trump, who has spent months talking up the project, posting renderings of it and promoting it at public events, even when the topic of the day was something else entirely, like the war against Iran.
The lawsuit was filed in December by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which argued that the ballroom was illegal and asked for construction to be suspended until it underwent public review.
After that challenge, the White House brought the project to the Commission of Fine Arts, a federal advisory body that weighs in on major architectural work. The commission approved the plan on February 19.
Another review body, the National Capital Planning Commission, is scheduled to vote on the project on April 2.
The approvals may not be enough
Trump has stacked both commissions with allies, including his executive assistant. That strategy may not be enough now.
Following Leon’s ruling, the ballroom project is suddenly on shakier ground, even with the pending federal approvals. The judge’s decision does not just complicate the timing. It also undercuts the basic argument the administration was using to defend the work in the first place.
Trump fires back, predictably and loudly
Trump’s response came within minutes. In a long post on Truth Social, he accused the National Trust for Historic Preservation of being “a group of left-wing extremists made up of lunatics.”
“The National Trust for Historic Preservation is suing me over a ballroom that is on budget, ahead of schedule, being built at zero cost to taxpayers, and will be the most refined building of its kind anywhere in the world,” Trump wrote.
He also complained that he had been criticized for the renovation of the Kennedy Center, now renamed Trump-Kennedy, while, in his telling, no one has said a word about “the Federal Reserve for a building that has been devastated and destroyed, both inside and out.”
That last target was no surprise. The U.S. central bank building is a familiar obsession for Trump, who used the moment to attack Fed chair Jerome Powell yet again. In Washington, even a courtroom setback still somehow manages to become a tour stop on Trump’s personal grievance circuit.
