The Supreme Court is letting President Trump move forward with his expensive White House ballroom.
On Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts ordered a stay in the preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that would have halted work at 11:59 p.m. This means that for now, construction can resume while the high court gives a full review to the lower court’s ruling earlier this month that the ballroom is illegal due to a lack of congressional approval.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 2–1 on August 7 that Congress has the “exclusive authority to regulate the construction and demolition of White House structures,” and since Trump began construction on his ballroom without congressional approval, it was against the law.
“At this preliminary stage, the National Trust [for Historic Preservation] has shown, compellingly, that Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House—the People’s House—to fit a particular President’s desires,” the ruling stated.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation initiated the legal challenge against Trump’s ballroom, on the grounds that he doesn’t have the authority for its construction, which has resulted in the demolition of the White House’s East Wing. The organization’s lawyers say that Trump is trying to “outrun the courts” by speeding up construction without waiting for judicial rulings.
Last year, Trump vowed that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” a promise that was quickly broken when the public saw pictures of the gutted White House. He claimed that it would only cost $200 million, only for that number to soar to $300 million and then $400 million after he added extra construction. Later, it emerged that taxpayers would be footing half of the bill for a $600 million project.
For now, Trump gets to keep building his unnecessary ballroom, and by the time the Supreme Court issues a final ruling, the American people could be stuck with it, whether it’s legal or not.
President Trump is trying to sue for defamation after yet another report found that the National Guard takeover of cities across America had no significant impact on violent crime levels.
In July, the Center for American Progress, or CAP, published a study analyzing the impact of Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles, Memphis, and Washington, D.C., which he has claimed time and time again saved those cities. In reality, the report found that the effort cost $1.7 billion and did virtually nothing.
“The findings of this analysis confirm what many already suspected: At the time of the administration’s federal law enforcement and National Guard deployments, the primary goal was never to stop crime,” the report noted. “There is no compelling evidence that these deployments reduced homicides, violent crime, or gun violence.”
That scathing finding led Trump to threaten another defamation lawsuit, arguing that the report was false and malicious. Trump’s personal lawyer, Alejandro Brito, contacted CAP on Monday with the lawsuit threat, giving the liberal think tank until 5 p.m. on Friday to retract the study and say sorry to Trump, The New York Times reported.
“The report is just another Radical Left SCAM, as are the people who fund this gaggle of Lunatics, including George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, WellsFargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, and NBC Universal. Foreign support includes the Embassy of Japan, the Korea Foundation, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Taiwan), and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates,” Trump ranted earlier this month. “The Dumocrats love it, and are against anything ‘TRUMP.’ These people, and others like them, are so bad for our Country. Their stated course is anything to hate or demean ‘TRUMP.’ This will be met with a lawsuit, which is being drawn now.”
CAP President Neera Tanden called Trump’s allegations “baseless” and vowed to fight back.
“Silencing research that is inconvenient to government policy is anathema to free speech and the First Amendment,” she wrote on X. “CAP will neither cower nor bend to this attack on independent research.”
This all of course means that American taxpayers paid billions of dollars for the National Guard to loiter in the streets of blue cities—in metro stops, in beautiful public parks, by Trader Joe’s—for nothing.