Judge Blocks Ballroom

A Bush-Appointed Judge Just Blocked the White House Ballroom and Trump Had the Perfect Response

What Judge Leon Actually Said--
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon – a George W. Bush appointee – ruled Tuesday that the National Trust for Historic Preservation is likely to win its case against the ballroom project, issuing an injunction that stops all above-ground construction.

His reasoning: no law gives the president authority to build at the White House without congressional approval first. "No statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have," Leon wrote. Then he gave Trump 14 days before enforcement kicks in – an invitation to appeal.

The DOJ accepted before the afternoon was over, filing a notice with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The ballroom is a 90,000-square-foot venue with Greco-Roman columns, privately funded through donations from businesses and individual donors.

The National Trust, Trump wrote, is "a Radical Left Group of Lunatics" suing him over a ballroom that is "under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the Taxpayer, and will be the finest Building of its kind anywhere in the World."

Since January 2025, district court judges have issued hundreds of injunctions blocking Trump administration priorities – deportations, agency restructuring, birthright citizenship orders, workforce reorganization. The pattern is identical every time: a single judge blocks, the administration appeals, the Supreme Court reverses.

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