Last October, President Donald Trump told a crowd of donors that he was surprised when his aides told him he could build his White House ballroom without seeking approval. At the time, Trump explained, “They said, ‘Sir, this is the White House, you’re the president of the United States. You can do anything you want.’” He’s spent the past year testing that claim, and according to the Washington Post, Trump has been able to achieve many of his vanity projects due to “legal loopholes” and because his political allies look the other way.
The ballroom is perhaps the most discussed of Trump’s D.C. vanity projects, and he’s made numerous other changes to the grounds. As the Post explains, “Nearly every corner of the White House’s campus has been eyed for potential renovations or new construction, including a new helipad, which workers are racing to complete this month. Trump has already paved over the mansion’s Rose Garden, added gilding throughout the building and fenced off the neighboring public park for a months-long renovation project. The president has said he hopes to complete the ballroom and other projects during his term, which ends in January 2029. He and his deputies have insisted that they are beautifying Washington, even as many longtime residents and civic leaders beg him to stop.”
To accomplish such projects, explains the Post, “Trump has subverted norms that guided past presidents, ignored outraged Democrats in Congress, remade expert panels and outraced the courts. As a federal judge deliberated this spring over whether to halt Trump’s rushed renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the administration completed its rapid six-week project before the judge could rule. (The pool has since been drained again for another batch of changes.) It is unclear whether anyone can legally stop some of Trump’s most audacious projects, such as the ballroom, despite its widespread unpopularity with the public.”
The Justice Department has claimed that only Congress can stop projects like the ballroom, with administration officials claiming lawmakers already authorized the construction by earmarking money for annual White House “improvements.” Stopping it would therefore require new legislation, and the Republicans who currently hold the majority have made it clear that they don’t intend to take such action. That forced Trump’s opponents to turn to the courts, but as the Post explains, the Supreme Court has just added another hurdle, ruling that a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation who had challenged the ballroom probably lacked legal standing to sue. This cleared the way for the ballroom’s construction, and raises questions about whether preservationists will be able to stop future federal projects.
“If the National Trust — which was chartered by Congress in 1949 and expressly granted the power to sue — can’t use litigation to vindicate the public’s interests to historic preservation, who can?” wondered Sara Bronin, a George Washington University law professor and former chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
According to the Post, “Republican leaders have shown little appetite for stopping Trump’s construction projects through enacting new legislative restrictions, opening investigations or taking other steps that could force the administration to pause.” And while theoretically, commissions of experts should provide a check as they review plans and proposals, Trump has largely packed them with hand-picked loyalists, resulting in a rapid approval of projects that one former appointee to the Commission of Fine Arts said is “unprecedented in recent history.” The administration also uses opposing logic to push different projects, arguing in the case of the ballroom that construction is too far along to stop, but with the 250-foot arch claiming that construction can’t be halted because it hasn’t started yet.
While courts and lawmakers have done little to stop him, according to the Post, “Trump may well pay a political price for his actions. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll in July found that 32 percent of the public was ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘satisfied’ about Trump’s construction projects, while 65 percent was ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘upset.’ The president’s focus on his construction projects may have contributed to his historic low standing with voters, which is endangering his party’s chances in this fall’s midterm elections. Democrats have vowed to launch investigations into Trump’s projects and other priorities if they retake Congress.”
As Martha Joynt Kumar, a longtime presidential historian and a political science professor emeritus at Towson University, explained, “He’s been talking about his ballroom at a time when Republicans in Congress would prefer that he talk about pocketbook issues of affordability, the price of groceries, gasoline.”
