Last week, on an emergency basis, Trump asked the Supreme Court to rescue the centerpiece of his ‘capital improvement campaign.’ Trump now calls his ballroom—a 90,000 ft.2 gilded party palace where donors in haute couture can eat wagyu beef and dance the night away—an “urgent matter of national security.” On Friday, the Court let Trump have his way.
Trump’s legal team was responding to a lower court’s stop-work order on the ballroom. An appellate panel ruled that presidents do not own the nation’s capital, or the White House, but rather are entrusted as temporary custodians. As such, they lack the unilateral authority to destroy, raze or replace core national structures without explicit approval from Congress. “The White House is the People’s House,” the majority wrote, “and under the Constitution’s Property Clause, Congress exercises plenary control over the building and its surrounding land.” Astute readers will note that ‘Congress’ is not ‘the president.’ The appellate panel went on: “The White House is owned by the American people and stewarded by the National Park Service. It is more than the President’s residence; it is a site for protests and national discourse about what it means to be American.”
Trump, selling merch and teasing an unconstitutional third run in hopes of evading legal accountability forever, has made clear that he does not respect national discourse, protests, or stewardship, and he does not see his role as temporary. Worse, his obsession with building a nuclear bunker to save himself as he threatens the world with tactical nukes is ominous.
How a party palace became a matter of “national security”
Trump has been yammering for a golden ballroom for over a decade, always framing it as a matter of dignity, aesthetics and design. “It will be a great legacy project, and I think it will be special,” he announced last July. “I think it will be really beautiful.” When he demolished the East Wing to make room for it in October, he again described the ballroom solely in terms of taste. He said then, and on many other occasions, that it was ‘unbefitting’ for a nation of the U.S.’s stature to ‘have to erect temporary tents for large events;’ national security never came up.
Even after major legal challenges arose in mid-December, Trump’s early legal pleadings still brayed about aesthetics and Trump’s need to entertain foreign palm greasers in style. As the “sole organ of American foreign policy,” Trump’s legal team argued, a president “must be able to receive ambassadors and other public ministers in an appropriate setting.”
But as federal courts began in earnest to question his authority to build it, Trump started re-marketing his ballroom by finding a new purpose for it. As presented in the WSJ, Trump began in January to shift his marketing strategy from aesthetics to national security. By March, Trump was all in on the ballroom’s “security upgrades,” which he now claims were ‘requested’ by ‘the military.’ Trump’s ballroom is no longer about space, dignity and taste. It’s all about national security, an afterthought Trump routinely trots out to defend his many sins.
Another disaster of Trump’s own making
The two-story East Wing of the White House previously held drawing rooms and offices for first ladies and their staffs. In early October of last year, without Congressional approval, without so much as a permit, Trump destroyed it. It only took Trump three days to turn 120 years of U.S. history into rubble, to make way for a party room twice the size of the entire White House.
Trump’s Supreme Court petition pushed his national security angle, disingenuously re-casting and re-marketing the whole project. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the high court the ballroom is an “integrated military complex” which is “vitally required by national security.” He argued that halting construction now, to comply with the lower court’s order, would “leave an incomplete structure exposed to the elements, creating a ‘disaster’ and posing safety risks.” Sauer urged that stopping the project would “put the security of the president and his family at risk and override the advice of the nation’s top military, intelligence and law enforcement officials” because the project has moved “beyond the point of no return.”
So Trump’s PR strategy for selling his ballroom became his legal strategy, never mind that the ‘nation’s top military, intelligence and law enforcement officials’ never asked for a ballroom. Rather, as the National Trust for Historic Preservation counters, Trump intentionally rushed both demolition and construction as a deliberate strategy meant to outrun judicial oversight. Trump only recently concocted his ‘national security’ angle to help promote it.
On Friday, the Supreme Court let Trump get away with it, ruling that construction could continue while it ‘fully considers’ the appeal, without imposing any kind of end date. It was an obvious punt, and a major victory for Trump, because by the time they rule, the ballroom will be too far along to stop. No doubt the 6 republicans will attend Trump’s first ball.
The public and members of Congress see the ballroom for what it is
When he first demolished the East Wing, Trump claimed that “presidents had wanted such a ballroom for years,” and that “some friends” of his would pay for it. He expected the American public to welcome another “free gift” from his donors and supplicants. They didn’t.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that most Americans- roughly 65%- are displeased with Trump’s D.C. building projects, regardless of source of funding. On the ballroom itself, standalone polling shows public opposition by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.
Members of Congress submitted a friend of the court brief in support of the lower court’s ruling, reiterating that, “For over two centuries, the White House has been renovated and maintained pursuant to congressional authorizations and appropriations.” Citing article IV section 3 of the Constitution, which places authority over federal property squarely with Congress, they urge, “Whereas the President lives in the White House for only a finite period while in office, the Constitution entrusts Congress with making long-term decisions about the “People’s House.”
It’s fitting that Congress, stripped of its authority yet again by a lawless strong man, gets the last word here. While Trump is convinced that claiming national security will make the court submit to his will, there “is no national security carveout to Congress’s control over federal property and federal spending.” Stabbing at the heart of Trump’s ruse, the Congressional brief urges that if Trump truly “believes national-security concerns require the project, there is a solution: he can bring those concerns to Congress and convince Congress to authorize the project and appropriate the requisite funds.”
Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.