US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that plans to build a new ballroom at the White House cannot be reversed, even as his own administration argues in court that the project remains flexible and subject
to review.
In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump insisted the ballroom project was already too far advanced to stop. He said key materials had been ordered or prepared and wrote that “there is no practical or reasonable way to go back”, adding in capital letters: “IT IS TOO LATE!”
“Stoppage of construction, at this late date, when so much has already been ordered and done, would be devastating to the White House, our Country, and all concerned,” he noted.
Trump’s comments sit uneasily alongside the position taken by US Justice Department lawyers in federal court. Just three days earlier, government lawyers told a judge that the ballroom plans could still be modified and that the White House would wait for two federal advisory panels to complete their reviews before starting aboveground construction, expected in April.
US District Judge Richard Leon, who is overseeing a legal challenge to the project, said he would rule in the coming weeks on whether construction may proceed. During the hearing, Leon suggested the White House was trying to bypass Congress’s role in overseeing major changes to historic federal buildings.
The judge also questioned the legal basis being used to defend the project. He said government lawyers were relying on an overly broad reading of a law that allows presidents to spend public money on maintaining the White House. That law, Leon said, was meant to cover small-scale works such as heating, lighting and basic repairs, not a major construction project costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
“It’s not (for) $400 million worth of destruction and construction,” Leon told US Justice Department lawyer Yaakov Roth.
In his post, Trump warned that stopping the project now would be “devastating” and listed materials he said had already been ordered, including steel, marble, bulletproof glass and anti-drone roofing.
“All of the Structural Steel, Windows, Doors, A.C./Heating Equipment, Marble, Stone, Precast Concrete, Bulletproof Windows and Glass, Anti-Drone Roofing, and much more, has been ordered (or is ready to be),” the US President wrote.
He also claimed the project was a gift to the nation and not funded by taxpayers. “A great, big, beautiful gift to the United States of America!”
Work has already begun on underground elements of the project. The East Wing annex was demolished in October to make way for the ballroom, drawing criticism from Democrats, watchdog groups and some conservatives, who said the public should have been consulted before altering the historic “People’s House”.
