Court Orders Trump to Halt White House Ballroom Construction; Arts Panel Approves $400M Project

A divided federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump must halt construction of his 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom until he obtains congressional approval. The ruling came a day after a federal arts commission approved the $400 million project.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., sided with historic preservationists who sued to stop construction. "Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence," the judges wrote. "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." The court will pause the ruling from taking effect for two weeks to give the Trump administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued over the project in December 2025, a week after the White House finished demolishing the East Wing to make way for the ballroom.

On Thursday, the Commission of Fine Arts voted to approve the ballroom's design, bypassing the traditional two-step review process by approving the conceptual design and final plans in a single meeting. The commission's chairman said the facility is "desperately needed for over 150 years" and called it "beautiful." The panel's secretary, who is not a Trump appointee, described mass opposition, saying he had received more than 2,000 messages from across the country in one week, and tried to slow the vote to no avail.

The ballroom still needs approval by the National Capital Planning Commission, with a goal of winning approval in the first week of March and starting aboveground construction as early as April. A federal judge is also considering whether to stop the project.

The National Trust criticized the commission's "unexpectedly truncated process," saying it "bypassed its obligation to provide serious design review and consider the views of the American people." An Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month found that 25 percent of respondents supported tearing down the East Wing to build the ballroom, while 58 percent opposed it. Democrats and watchdog groups have questioned whether ballroom contributors, including Amazon, Google and Palantir, will receive special access or perks in exchange for their gifts.

Trump has defended the project, saying it is funded by private donations and that presidents need a permanent space to entertain VIP guests. "Will be the Greatest Ballroom ever built," he wrote Wednesday in a social media post.