A divided federal appeals court has ordered construction stopped on President Trump's $400 million White House ballroom and military complex, and the administration is now racing to take the fight to the Supreme Court before a 14-day clock runs out.
CD1 Mini Scheduled: 3:26 PM CST. LOGO manually added.A 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that the president lacks unilateral authority to replace the East Wing with the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom, finding that the Constitution gives Congress, not the executive branch, the power to approve changes to the White House's physical design. The majority opinion, spanning 136 pages, was authored by Obama appointee Judge Patricia Millett and Biden appointee Judge Brad Garcia. Trump appointee Judge Neomi Rao dissented.
Trump fired back within hours on Truth Social, framing the ruling as both legally wrong and a direct threat to White House security.
In his post, the president seized on the court's characterization of the presidency as a temporary occupancy. Trump wrote on Truth Social:
"Two Judges, one appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, the other by Sleepy Joe Biden, said in a ruling on the desperately needed SECURE Ballroom/Military Complex, including a major DronePort on the roof, that 'Each President is a temporary tenant... of the White House.'"
He continued:
"We are not tenants, who pay rent and do all other things that a tenant must do, we are PRESIDENTS, elected by the people of the United States of America, and have many rights, including the right to fix, renovate, secure, protect, and beautify the White House grounds, which has been built and rebuilt, renovated and rerenovated, repaired and, simply, MADE BETTER, many times since 1792, and never needing the permission of Congress."
Trump also said the ruling "severely jeopardizes the lives and welfare of the people who work, and will be working, at the White House," and announced he would immediately appeal to the Supreme Court. The court's stay gives the Justice Department 14 days to seek review before the construction halt takes full effect.
The majority opinion did not hold back about the scope of what the administration attempted. Judges Millett and Garcia wrote, as reported by the Washington Examiner:
"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. Until now."
That framing, privately collected funds used to tear down a publicly funded structure, sits at the center of the legal dispute. The court held that congressional authorization is a constitutional prerequisite, not a formality the executive can skip.
Judge Rao, in dissent, pushed back sharply. She argued the ballroom "is also likely within the President's authority to make improvements to the Executive Residence at the White House" and that "the balance of equities overwhelmingly favors the government."
The appeals court ruling did not shut down every piece of work at the site. Underground construction on bunkers, military installations, and medical facilities may continue. Only the above-ground ballroom itself, the 90,000-square-foot centerpiece, must stop.
That distinction traces back to an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, who first ordered the halt in a 35-page opinion. Leon allowed below-ground national security work to proceed but drew a hard line at the ballroom itself.
Leon was blunt about the administration's attempt to fold the entire project under a security umbrella. As Newsmax reported, the judge wrote:
"National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity."
He added: "Defendants argue that the entire ballroom construction project, from tip to tail, falls within the safety-and-security exception and therefore may proceed unabated. That is neither a reasonable nor a correct reading of my Order!"
The case was brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued in December after the White House demolished the East Wing to make way for the ballroom. The nonprofit argued the project was pursued without congressional input, a position the courts have now endorsed at two levels.
During a two-hour oral argument before the D.C. Circuit, government attorney Yaakov Roth contended that no court had the power to halt the project once construction began. "I think it would have been improper to enjoin it even on Day One," Roth told the panel. He argued that only Congress, not the judiciary, could stop the work.
Plaintiff attorney Tad Heuer countered with a simple constitutional point: "Congress can allow ballrooms to be built, it's its property."
Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Trump had posted an aerial photo of the construction site on Truth Social, saying the project was on budget and ahead of schedule. He noted the steel for the military complex had already been fabricated and would be installed soon, adding that the structure was not yet visible in the aerial photo for that reason. He also described a planned drone port on the roof of the completed building.
Trump has argued that the project's security features, bulletproof glass, drone-proofing, and secure air handling systems, place it squarely within presidential authority over White House safety. "We have all of these things. So that's called, I'm allowed to continue building as necessary. So think of that for the safety of the president," Trump said in earlier remarks.
The ballroom also received final approval from the 12-member National Capital Planning Commission on April 2, two days after Judge Leon's original ruling halting construction. That timing raised its own questions about the coordination between the project's administrative approvals and the court proceedings unfolding simultaneously.
The case now heads toward the Supreme Court on a tight timeline. Trump has 14 days from the ruling to seek review, and the administration has signaled it will move immediately. The legal question is significant: does the president have inherent authority to renovate, rebuild, and secure the White House without specific congressional authorization, or does the Constitution's Property Clause give Congress the final word?
The majority opinion's emphasis on privately collected funds adds another wrinkle. If the project were funded through normal appropriations, the congressional-authorization question might look different. But the court noted this was a case of private money being used to demolish and replace structures that taxpayers originally funded and Congress originally authorized.
Judge Rao's dissent, meanwhile, offers the administration a roadmap for its Supreme Court brief. She argued the equities favor the government and that the president's improvement authority covers the project. Whether a majority of the Supreme Court agrees will determine whether the ballroom rises above ground, or stays frozen in legal limbo.
Two judges appointed by presidents who are no longer in office used a 136-page ruling to tell the sitting president he cannot secure his own residence. The Supreme Court will now decide whether the Constitution actually requires a commander-in-chief to ask permission before protecting the White House, or whether that idea is as disconnected from reality as calling the president a tenant.
