Republicans are not exactly sprinting to help
A federal judge’s ruling blocking President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project has triggered the usual political reflexes: outrage from Trump allies, silence from many congressional Republicans, and a fresh reminder that even the White House occasionally needs permission slips.
Lexi Hamel, a spokesperson for Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, said Wednesday that the Republican “believes the ruling is stupid” and that “nobody raised hell when Roosevelt or Truman renovated the White House (at taxpayer expense).”
That may be true, at least in the broad and historically convenient sense. But if Trump’s appeal fails, Republicans in Congress will eventually have to decide whether to try to pass legislation giving the White House clear authority to move ahead, or risk letting the project stall. The ballroom already had a target completion date of 2028, which is just before the end of Trump’s current term. Time, inconveniently, remains a factor.
Pressure from Trump allies
Mike Davis, a conservative judicial activist close to the White House, said Republicans “need to” act.
“Are they just going to let the ballroom just sit there in disarray … they’re just going to let the construction zone be a fucking disaster for the next three years?” Davis added. “Like, come on.”
The problem for Republicans is that “come on” is not a committee jurisdiction. And most GOP lawmakers with direct responsibility for White House and public property issues have not said whether they are willing to carry legislation to protect one of Trump’s pet projects.
Doing so would open the door to criticism from Democrats, who have already framed the ballroom as evidence that the president is more interested in entertaining wealthy donors than lowering everyday costs. Democrats also have the ability in the Senate to block any authorization bill before it ever reaches Trump’s desk.
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, put it plainly on Tuesday evening.
“This is a very clear test of Republican priorities,” she said. “They can either bring up the Senate-passed bill to end the DHS shutdown … or they can bring up a bill to give President Trump permission to build his $350 million ballroom to host his billionaire friends.”
The committees that would matter most are mostly silent
The House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources oversee authorizations for projects on National Park Service land, which includes the White House grounds. Spokespeople for the committee chairs, Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, did not respond to requests for comment this week.
Simpson’s office said funding for the White House project was not within his committee’s scope. Spokespeople for the chairs of the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees that oversee the Executive Office of the President also did not respond on Wednesday.
Democrats have tried before to block money from going toward ballroom construction through the appropriations process, but those efforts did not succeed.
Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, a reliable Trump supporter who has previously floated the idea of putting Trump’s face on Mount Rushmore, said in a text message Wednesday that he was not aware of any GOP effort to introduce legislation authorizing the ballroom.
Speaker Mike Johnson has already defended Trump’s plan, saying other presidents have renovated or expanded the White House, including Barack Obama. But Johnson’s office did not comment Wednesday, and neither did Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office.
Republicans have other problems, inconveniently
Privately, many Republicans seem unconvinced they need to jump in right away. The matter is still tied up in court, and lawmakers already have a crowded agenda. Among the items competing for attention are ending the DHS shutdown, reauthorizing controversial spy powers, and meeting Trump’s deadline for a GOP-only immigration enforcement bill.
In other words, the ballroom is competing with several other items that are also on fire, politically speaking.
Asked whether the administration would seek congressional action to eliminate any doubt or delay, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle criticized the court ruling instead.
“President Trump clearly has the legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House — just like all of his predecessors did,” Ingle said. “We will immediately appeal this egregious decision and are confident we will prevail.”
Davis, the judicial activist, suggested Republicans could also approve the project through a budget reconciliation bill, which can pass both chambers with a simple majority. There have been discussions about stitching together two party-line policy packages in the coming months, one focused on ICE and Border Patrol funding and another covering a broader set of GOP priorities. Whether a ballroom blessing would satisfy the strict rules governing reconciliation is another matter.
The legal backdrop is not helping Trump
This is not the first time courts have pushed back on Trump for acting without congressional approval. The Supreme Court recently struck down his unilateral tariffs, and lower courts have ordered the removal of U.S. attorneys who were never confirmed by the Senate.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that history is on their side when it comes to the ballroom project. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon addressed that point directly in his ruling.
Leon noted that smaller projects, such as Trump’s 2019 tennis pavilion, “were never challenged in court.” But larger expansions in 1933 and 1942, including construction of the East Wing that Trump now wants to replace, were authorized “through general appropriations,” he wrote.
A major White House renovation under Harry Truman was also authorized in a standalone 1949 law. That law specifically barred any “change of [the] present architectural appearance of the exterior of the mansion or the interior of its main floor.”
Still, the argument that previous presidents built things without much fuss remains popular among the few Republicans willing to speak publicly.
Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas said past presidents used private funds for White House additions without congressional approval.
“President FDR built an indoor swimming pool with private funds. President Obama built a basketball court with private funds,” Gooden wrote on X. “Yet a single judge can block President Trump from building a PRIVATELY FUNDED ballroom that would benefit generations to come.”
For now, Republicans appear to be waiting to see whether Trump wins on appeal, whether Democrats make the project a useful political cudgel, and whether somebody, somewhere, volunteers to turn a ballroom into a legislative priority. A remarkably crowded field, as it turns out.
