The Trump ballroom is a major, nearly half-a-billion-dollar plan that the US President claims is a more economical project than simply restoring the White House East Wing
21:10, 31 Mar 2026Updated 21:23, 31 Mar 2026
Donald Trump’s plans for a White House ballroom have been dealt a major blow
Donald Trump has been dealt a humiliating blow by a federal judge who has ruled the US President has “no authority” over one of his centrepiece projects.
A US judge has halted construction on Trump’s White House ballroom construction project after finding proper procedures were not followed before the project began. Judge Richard Leon, a Republican appointee, decided the President does not have “the authority he claims to have” in the wake of a lawsuit put forward by The National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The judge wrote: “I have concluded that the National Trust is likely to succeed on the merits because no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.”
READ MORE: Urgent warning to tourists as hotels become ‘potential targets’ for Iran strikes
OPINION
Voice of the Mirror
Cranes being used to build the new ballroom could be seen over the White House(Image: AP)
“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Construction of the ballroom, part of the President’s long running bid to make over the White House complex to his own tastes, was launched late last year, and is a major, $400 million (£302 million) plan expected to turn out a new 90,000 square foot building.
The ruling adds to what has been a stressful week for Trump, who has been taking to social media to complain about his “war of choice” in Iran, as he is no closer to decapitating a regime nearly a month after launching into strikes alongside Israel.
Early on Tuesday morning, the President made a pointed post on his Truth Social platform pointing a finger at the UK and France for failing to back the conflict – which is having profound economic consequences on the global economy. The President reacted in a similar vein to today’s decision, branding the National Trust for Historic Preservation “a radical left group of lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005”.
The Trump ballroom project is set to cost up to $400 million(Image: AP)
In another long Truth Social rant, he complained: “The National Trust for Historic Preservation sues me for a Ballroom that is under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the Taxpayer, and will be the finest Building of its kind anywhere in the World.
“I then get sued by them over the renovation of the dilapidated and structurally unsound former Kennedy Center, now, The Trump Kennedy Center (A show of Bipartisan Unity, a Republican and Democrat President!), where all I am doing is fixing, cleaning, running, and ‘sprucing up’ a terribly maintained, for many years, Building, but a Building of potentially great importance.
“Yet, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Radical Left Group of Lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005, is not suing the Federal Reserve for a Building which has been decimated and destroyed, inside and out, by an incompetent and possibly corrupt Fed Chairman.”
Trump raged at the decision in a post on Truth Social(Image: Getty Images)
“The once magnificent Building is BILLIONS over budget, may never be completed, and may never open. All of the beautiful walls inside have been ripped down, never to be built again, but the National “Trust” for Historic Preservation never did anything about it!
“Or, have they sued on Governor Gavin Newscum’s ‘RAILROAD TO NOWHERE’ in California that is BILLIONS over Budget and, probably, will never open or be used. So, the White House Ballroom, and The Trump Kennedy Center, which are under budget, ahead of schedule, and will be among the most magnificent Buildings of their kind anywhere in the World, gets sued by a group that was cut off by Government years ago, but all of the many DISASTERS in our Country are left alone to die. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? President DONALD J. TRUMP”