It’s been a wild day on the courts. A judge ruled that President Trump’s order to defund PBS and NPR was unconstitutional, even though it’s already been established through the Big Beautiful Bill. Now, the president has been instructed to stop all work on the grand ballroom addition to the White House. The reason: Trump likely lacked the authority to do this without consulting Congress (via NYT):
JUST IN: A federal judge has blocked construciton of the president's ballroom without congressional approval.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 31, 2026
"He is not the owner," Judge Leon says of Trump. He has delayed his order for 14 days, however, giving Trump a chance to appeal.https://t.co/mvKQso8i49 pic.twitter.com/d8Y5kIuYTq
A federal judge ordered on Tuesday that construction be halted on President Trump’s proposed White House ballroom, to be built in place of the demolished East Wing, saying work must come to a stop until the project receives a go-ahead from Congress.
The decision delivered the first meaningful setback to the president’s increasingly audacious efforts to redesign the White House and Washington, D.C. It came after months of litigation in front of Judge Richard J. Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, who had previously declined to step in.
In a 35-page opinion, Judge Leon wrote that Mr. Trump likely did not have the authority to act on his own, without consulting Congress, to replace entire sections of the White House — changes that could endure for generations.
He also reiterated concerns he had raised for months in court: that from the start, the administration has provided shifting and questionable accounts of who was in charge of the project and under what authority private donations could be accepted to fund it.
“Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” he wrote. “But here is the good news. It is not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project.”
Judge Leon wrote that if the White House sought congressional approval, the legislature would “retain its authority over the nation’s property and its oversight over the government’s spending.”
The ballroom is just one item on a long list of complaints liberals have against the president, a hyperbolic tantrum that most people ignore except for the supporters and groups that benefit from the political class. Sorry, having dignitaries and VIPs use port-a-johns for state dinners is unacceptable. A new room was necessary, and Trump was trying to make it happen.
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