{"id":31508,"date":"2026-08-07T21:32:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31508"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:32:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:32:25","slug":"appeals-court-blocks-trumps-white-house-ballroom-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31508","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court blocks Trump\u2019s White House ballroom construction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260807-ballroom-ch-1112-797fc5.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-43084e\" class=\"body-graf\">A federal appeals court on Friday affirmed a U.S. judge\u2019s ruling to block construction of the White House ballroom while allowing below-ground work to move forward.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-23fa4b\" class=\"body-graf\">In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28543253-ballroom-appeals-court-ruling\/\" target=\"_blank\">2-1 decision<\/a>, the court affirmed the modified preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. But they stayed their own ruling for 14 days to allow the Trump administration to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-39b0a7\" class=\"body-graf\">The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News\u2019 request for comment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-a136be\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cWhether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,\u201d the appeals court\u2019s ruling said. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8f1386\" class=\"body-graf\">That\u2019s because the \u201cConstitution assigns Congress \u2014 not the Executive \u2014 the responsibility to decide whether proposed changes to the physical design of the White House may proceed, even where those changes are said to serve security interests.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-e32b8b\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cEach President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence,\u201d the Ruling said. \u201cThe President has no \u2014 and claims no \u2014 constitutionally assigned authority over that property.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-0142ea\" class=\"body-graf\">The ruling paints the current administration as completely ignoring those restrictions.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-f23c42\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cOver just three days in October 2025, without undertaking promised consultations or obtaining Congress\u2019s permission, President Trump bulldozed the entire East Wing in order to construct a massive, 90,000 square-foot ballroom paid for by private funds with no congressional oversight,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-bf2587\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-ff1658\" class=\"body-graf\">The ruling by U.S. Circuit Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Brad Garcia, a Biden appointee, says it \u201chas nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable, or not, as a matter of policy. This ruling does not even necessarily mean that the Defendants may not ultimately construct the ballroom. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-1e7a09\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cWhat it does mean is that the Defendants may not do so during the district court\u2019s expeditious litigation without securing Congress\u2019s authorization, as the Constitution and laws require,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-85609f\" class=\"body-graf\">The dissenting judge was Trump appointee Neomi Rao, who said the lower court had \u201cabused its discretion in seizing control of construction at the President\u2019s home and office\u201d through the underlying order that her colleagues were upholding.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8a6b91\" class=\"body-graf\">That judge had previously let some aspects of the construction to move forward, but then said the Trump administration was taking advantage of a safety and security exception to encompass the entire ballroom construction effort.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8b891a\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cDefendants 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!\u201dLeon, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/trump-administration\/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-demolition-white-house-trumps-ballroo-rcna266095\">a noted fan of exclamation marks<\/a>, wrote in his prior April order. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-638700\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">\u201cIt is, to say the least, incredible, if not disingenuous, that Defendants now argue that my Order does not stop ballroom construction because of the safety-and-security exception!\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal appeals court on Friday affirmed a U.S. judge\u2019s ruling to block construction of the White House ballroom while allowing below-ground work to move forward. In a 2-1 decision, the court affirmed the modified preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. But they stayed their own ruling for 14 days to allow&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260807-ballroom-ch-1112-797fc5.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}