Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
President Donald Trump was left fuming after a federal judge blocked construction of his planned White House ballroom.In a ruling delivered Tuesday, US District Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction requested by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, which had sued to stop the ballroom from being built.
While handing down the injunction, Leon reminded Trump that 'the president of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations,' then emphasized 'he is not, however, the owner' of the building.The judge—appointed by former President George W. Bush—found that Trump's ballroom was the first time that a proposed major addition to the White House went forward without any kind of congressional approval, and he recommended that the president seek input from the legislative branch before moving forward with the project.'Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!' Leon wrote in his conclusion. 'But here is the good news. It is not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project.'The judge granted a two-week delay for his order to go into effect, but he warned any above-ground construction of the ballroom done in that time will be 'at risk of being taken down depending on the outcome of this case.'In a Truth Social post delivered after the ruling, the president angrily lashed out at National Trust for Historic Preservation, which he described as 'a Radical Left Group of Lunatics.' The president also claimed that his ballroom and the renovated John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—which Trump shut down less than two months after illegally slapping his own name on the side of the building—'will be among the most magnificent Buildings of their kind anywhere in the World.'Trump last year tore down the entire East Wing of the White House in preparation for the ballroom's construction, which was set to begin this week.The cost of the ballroom is estimated at $400 million, and Trump is financing it by soliciting donations from some of America’s wealthiest corporations—including several with government contracts and interests in deregulation—such as Apple, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Palantir. The president held an exclusive White House dinner for some of the largest donors to the ballroom in October, in a move that many critics decried as a “cash-for-access” event.
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