Supreme Court Allows Trump to Keep Building White House Ballroom

Who am I kidding. This isn't going to benefit me. Sure they'll have plenty of extra spaces for attendees at state dinners. I'm still going to be sitting at home waiting for my invitation.

After everything I've done for the Dark Lord, it's offensive how little attention he pays me.

Supreme Court Allows Trump to Keep Building White House Ballroom

The green light means the project could largely be completed before a final ruling on its legality

By James Romoser and Lydia Wheeler, WSJ

Updated Aug. 31, 2026

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Trump to keep building his White House ballroom, clearing the way for construction crews to continue their nearly round-the-clock work to complete one of the president’s prized projects.

In a 5-4 ruling, the high court said that a historic preservation group likely doesn’t have legal standing to challenge the ballroom, and that the Trump administration would suffer “irreparable harm” if the construction were halted now.

“We do not pass upon the legality” of the project, the court said in an unsigned eight-page decision from five of the court’s six Republican-appointed justices.

Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three Democratic-appointed justices dissented.

Two lower courts had declared the 90,000-square-foot ballroom project illegal and said construction must be halted. But a judge’s stop-work order was put on hold while the administration pursued appeals.

The Supreme Court’s ruling keeps that order on hold indefinitely, effectively giving a green light to one of Trump’s most visibly audacious projects, which critics see as the latest instance of the president ignoring Congress and flouting norms.

Roberts had already blocked the stop-work order from kicking in on Aug. 22 with a temporary measure that gave the justices more time to deliberate.

The saga began last October, when Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House in a matter of days and immediately began construction on the ballroom. At the time, the president said a large, lavish event space was necessary for state dinners and other White House functions that now take place in outdoor tents.

Since then, the project’s scope—and the administration’s justifications for it—have expanded dramatically. Trump said the complex now includes robust military and security measures, including an underground state-of-the-art hospital and a drone port on the roof. Solicitor General John Sauer described the project in a legal brief as a “concrete-and-steel superstructure” that is already about two-thirds complete and couldn’t practically be taken down.

The facility is now expected to accommodate 1,000 guests, up from the initial 650 people projected, and its original $200 million price tag has doubled, though the true cost of the project is unknown. Trump has pledged the project will be paid for entirely with private donations, but taxpayers could help fund security-related upgrades if a GOP-led Congress approves it.

A 250-person crew has been working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, to build the complex, Sauer said.

In his emergency appeal to the high court, the solicitor general warned that stopping work now would leave the half-built project “susceptible to strong winds during extreme weather, and vulnerable to erosion, water, foundation damage, and other setbacks that will fundamentally compromise the integrity of everything currently built.” He also argued that the project is legal under a statute that authorizes the president to manage the “improvement” or “alteration” of the White House residence.

Sauer sought the Supreme Court’s immediate intervention after lower courts ruled in favor of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit that sued to stop the project. The preservation trust was chartered by Congress to engage the public in protecting historic sites.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a President George W. Bush appointee, sided with the trust, ruling that only Congress has the power to approve demolitions of the White House or new buildings on its grounds. He issued an injunction in the spring that ordered the administration to stop above-ground construction, and a federal appeals panel affirmed Leon’s ruling earlier in August.

The president has been blitzing through so-called beautification projects in the nation’s capital since moving back to the White House for a second term. He resurfaced the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool, tried to close and rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and now has plans to build a 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery. All are facing legal challenges. The ballroom case is the first dispute over one of his renovation projects to reach the high court.