{"id":519,"date":"2026-08-14T16:15:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=519"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:15:40","slug":"trump-brings-ballroom-dispute-to-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=519","title":{"rendered":"Trump brings ballroom dispute to the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to allow construction of the new White House ballroom to continue while a challenge to the project continues in the lower courts. The request came one week after a federal appeals court in Washington upheld a ruling by a federal district court that temporarily blocked construction, while at the same time giving the federal government 14 days to go to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=517\">Understanding the court\u2019s next major case on asylum seekers: Wassily v. Blanche<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration  to put the order by Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon on hold, calling it \u201cextraordinary and unlawful.\u201d It \u201cwill halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security,\u201d U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Sauer sought to pause Leon\u2019s order to give the government time to file a petition for review at the Supreme Court. He also asked the justices to immediately issue an administrative stay, which would temporarily block the order while the court considers the government\u2019s request.<\/p>\n<p>The dispute began in October 2025, when the Trump administration tore down the East Wing of the White House, which had housed (among other things) the offices of the First Lady and her staff, to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom \u2013 just slightly smaller than one-and-a-half football fields.<\/p>\n<p>The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private nonprofit that describes itself as having \u201cled the movement to save America\u2019s historic places\u201d \u201c[f]or more than 75 years,\u201d filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>Leon\u2019s order temporarily blocked the construction of the ballroom above ground but allowed construction \u2013 of, for example, bomb shelters and bunkers \u2013 to continue underground, along with any above-ground construction necessary for safety and security. Leon\u2019s ruling never went into effect, however, because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an administrative stay while the Trump administration\u2019s appeal was pending.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Aug. 7, a divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit upheld Leon\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=516\">Who exactly are the \u201cfriends of the court\u201d?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia concluded that Congress, rather than the president, \u201chas exclusive authority to regulate the construction and demolition of White House structures,\u201d and it has not authorized any money for the ballroom construction. They agreed with the trust that if the construction is not put on hold and the ballroom is built, it will inflict permanent harm (another criterion in considering whether to grant temporary relief) on the trust\u2019s members because of the \u201cirreversible historical-preservation, architectural, and visual damage\u201d that the new structure will cause.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Neomi Rao dissented. She contended (among other things) that the National Trust for Historic Preservation did not have a legal right to sue, known as standing, to stop the ballroom construction. Moreover, she added, the president has the power to make improvements to his residence, which likely includes the ballroom.<\/p>\n<p>Millett and Garcia put their order on hold for 14 days to give the Trump administration time to go to the Supreme Court. On Friday, Sauer did exactly that. He first contended that the trust does not have a legal right to sue, known as standing, because its claims rest on a member\u2019s \u201cdislike\u201d for the new construction. Such a \u201csubjective preference\u201d does not create the kind of injury that would allow the lawsuit to go forward, he contended. To the contrary, Sauer suggested, \u201c[m]any strongly disagree with her, as one\u201d White House official indicates in a declaration attached to the Trump administration\u2019s application: Joshua Fisher, the director for White House Management and Administration, wrote that \u201c[t]his building is already being adjudged to be one of the most beautiful of its kind, anywhere in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sauer pushed back against the conclusion by the D.C Circuit majority that Trump lacked the power to bulldoze the East Wing and initiate the new construction. \u201cCongress,\u201d he wrote, \u201chas authorized the Project twice over\u201d \u2013 by authorizing Trump and other presidents \u201cto make \u2018alteration[s]\u2019 and \u2018improvement[s]\u2019 to the White House\u201d and because it \u201cbroadly authorized the Executive to construct buildings in national parks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sauer also noted that because Leon\u2019s order has never gone into effect, \u201cconstruction has since proceeded \u2026, with a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to keep the Project ahead of schedule and under budget. Today, the Project is 65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Fisher added in his declaration, \u201c[q]uite frankly, if the building were tragically ordered to be taken down, or even altered, by the court, there would be no way to do so.\u201d According to Fisher, among other things, the concrete that has been used in the project is \u201cthe type used in nuclear power plants\u201d and is \u201cvirtually impossible to deconstruct.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=514\">The transformation of Supreme Court arguments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to allow construction of the new White House ballroom to continue while a challenge to the project continues in the lower courts. The request came one week after a federal appeals court in Washington upheld a ruling by a federal district court [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Trump brings ballroom dispute to the Supreme Court - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=519\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump brings ballroom dispute to the Supreme Court - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to allow construction of the new White House ballroom to continue while a challenge to the project continues in the lower courts. 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