A federal appeals court ruled that President Trump cannot build a $400 million ballroom on the demolished White House East Wing site without congressional approval, and Trump says the Supreme Court will have the final word.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a 2-1 decision Friday ordering the Trump administration to halt all above-ground construction on the 90,000-square-foot structure. The ruling upheld a preliminary injunction won by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued after the administration tore down the East Wing and began building without seeking authorization from Congress. The court placed its order on hold for 14 days, giving the administration a narrow window to take the fight to the Supreme Court.
Trump wasted no time. In a post on Truth Social, he called the decision "horrendous" and politically motivated, referred to the structure as a "military center," and declared he would appeal immediately.
Circuit Judges Patricia Millett and Brad Garcia, both appointed by Democratic presidents, wrote the majority opinion. Their language left little room for ambiguity. As CNBC reported, the panel declared that the president holds no unilateral power to reshape the White House grounds using privately raised funds.
The majority wrote:
"Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House."
And they went further. The opinion stated that "whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help." The court also dismissed the administration's national security arguments, writing that such claims "are not an automatic get-out-of-law-free card."
In a passage that drew the sharpest line, the majority wrote:
"Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House, the People's House, to fit a particular President's desires."
The majority also noted, in language that underscored how unprecedented the dispute is, that they were "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 next three words: "Until now."
Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, appointed by Trump during his first term, dissented. She argued that the trial court's injunction blocking the project "is beyond the proper province of the federal courts."
Rao did not hold back about what she saw as a separation-of-powers problem running in the opposite direction from the majority's conclusion.
"The district court seized supervision of construction at the White House, and my colleagues affirm this judicial overreach."
Her dissent frames the core tension in this case. The majority says Congress must authorize construction. Rao says the judiciary has no business supervising it. Both sides claim to be defending constitutional boundaries, and both accuse the other of crossing them.
The case has followed a pattern familiar from other recent court battles in which federal judges have blocked executive action and the administration has escalated to higher courts.
Trump's Truth Social post Friday cast the ballroom not as an entertainment venue but as a critical defense installation. He said the project includes "bomb shelters, medical facilities, shielding from drones and missiles and other security features that are 'all tied together as one big, expensive, and very complex unit.'"
He also wrote that the ruling "severely jeopardizes the lives and welfare of the people who work, and will be working, at the White House," and challenged the National Trust's legal standing to bring the case at all, calling the court's standing analysis "totally wrong."
That security framing has grown more prominent over time. Trump has increasingly described the ballroom as a military and protective facility, not merely a social space. During oral arguments on June 5, Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth told the D.C. Circuit that courts have no role in weighing the privately funded project and argued that the National Trust's "architectural preference" should not override national security concerns. Roth also claimed evidence that the former East Wing left the president and others in the White House vulnerable to attack.
The court was not persuaded. The majority opinion explicitly addressed the security argument and rejected it as a blanket justification for bypassing Congress.
The ballroom project has ballooned since its inception. The price tag has doubled from initial projections, and the structure now spans 90,000 square feet, roughly 8,360 square meters. Trump acknowledged the growth in a Truth Social post in May, writing that the cost rose because "it is approximately twice the size, and a far higher quality, than the original proposal." He added: "it will be magnificent, safe, and secure!"
The New York Post reported the project could ultimately cost upwards of $600 million. The project is privately funded, a detail the administration has emphasized in arguing that congressional approval is unnecessary.
But the court drew a clear distinction: who pays for the construction does not determine who must authorize it. The majority ruled that no federal statute gives the president authority to build on the White House grounds without Congress signing off, regardless of the funding source.
The administration's argument that private funding exempts the project from legislative oversight is a significant legal claim, and the Supreme Court may soon have to decide whether it holds.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which filed the lawsuit after workers bulldozed the East Wing last year, celebrated the decision. The group's president, Brent Leggs, issued a statement calling it:
"A great day for our country and for the American people's right to voice their opinions about the historic places they cherish, including the White House."
Thaddeus Heuer, a lawyer for the National Trust, offered a blunter assessment of the administration's legal strategy. He told reporters: "They just don't want to go to Congress."
That claim cuts to the heart of the dispute. The court's ruling does not permanently bar a ballroom. It does not say the project is a bad idea. It says the president must get Congress to approve it first, and that he chose not to.
Before the case reached the D.C. Circuit, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush, twice blocked above-ground construction on the site. Leon allowed underground work to continue but drew the line at visible structural progress. The Trump administration appealed both rulings.
The fact that a Republican-appointed district judge and two Democratic-appointed appellate judges reached the same conclusion complicates any framing of this as a purely partisan judicial action. The dissent came from a Trump appointee, but the lower court's original injunction did not.
The administration now has 14 days to petition the Supreme Court. Given Trump's public statements, that appeal appears certain. The high court has shown willingness to weigh in on disputes over presidential authority in recent terms, and this case raises a question the justices have not previously addressed: whether a president can demolish and rebuild portions of the White House using private money, without a single vote in Congress.
The ballroom case is not the only legal setback involving presidential modifications to federal landmarks. In a separate lawsuit, a judge recently ruled that Trump's name was illegally added to the exterior of the Kennedy Center performing arts venue in Washington and ordered its removal, a dispute that drew its own sharp criticism from the administration.
The clock is now running. The 14-day hold gives the administration a brief window, and the Supreme Court will decide whether to take up a case that sits at the intersection of executive power, congressional authority, historic preservation, and national security.
Trump has taken disputes to the high court before, including a recent fight over mail-in voting, and has not hesitated to frame lower-court losses as temporary obstacles. Whether the justices see this case the same way remains an open question.
The administration says it is building a security facility. The courts say it is building without permission. Congress, the one body both sides agree has the authority to settle the matter, has not weighed in at all. That silence may be the most telling fact in the entire dispute.
