Donald Trump finally wants to finance his ballroom at the White House with public funds

Could the attack on the Press Correspondents’ Association gala dinner in Washington unlock the construction of Donald Trump’s ballroom? Hastily launched in October on the east wing of the White House, work on this vast gilded reception space is facing several obstacles. The latest: the suspension of the construction site at the beginning of April by federal judge Richard Leon, who called into question its legality. “The President of the United States is responsible for the White House for future generations of presidential families and that does not make him the owner”he wrote in his verdict.

The Court of Appeal authorized the continuation of the work, only for the underground part, while the matter was resolved. But a 33-page file, submitted last March by the White House, is the subject of a long examination in Congress and the presidential camp hopes that parliamentarians will give the green light before the next mid-term elections, scheduled for the fall. In the meantime, members of the Trump administration are currently lobbying Congress, following in the footsteps of the US president who, after the April 25 shooting in Washington, claimed that the construction of the ballroom was « more essential than ever”.

“This incident would never have happened if the military-classified “top secret” reception room, currently under construction at the White House, had already existed”wrote Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform a few hours after the tragedy. In a press release relayed by the New York TimesRepublican Senator Lindsey Graham, chairman of the budget committee, hastened to ask Congress for an envelope of 400 million dollars necessary to carry out the work. In particular, he stressed the need to build a basement at the White House with secure facilities that the president and members of his entourage could use in the event of an emergency during major official receptions.

 

By financing this essential work, Donald Trump and his successors will be able to organize major events without having to leave the White House

Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator and Chairman of the Budget Committee

“By financing this essential work, Donald Trump and his successors will be able to organize major events without having to leave the White House”added the elected official in this document co-signed with two of his Senate colleagues. The opinion was shared by other representatives of the Republican Party, such as Lauren Boebert, figure of the MAGA movement in Colorado, and Senator Rand Paul, who said they were preparing “a proposed law”according to information fromArtnews. Tim Sheehy, also a senator, called ” ashamed “ the waiting period and called on Congress to “quick vote”. According to the Washington PostDonald Trump would have, for his part, insisted that a new gala be organized at the White House and not at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, where the previous one was held. The president hopes to be able to “reschedule in the next thirty days” with a reinforced and expanded security perimeter.

A constantly evolving project

In late February, the work was approved by the Commission of Fine Arts, an agency charged for 126 years with advising the United States federal government on “design and aesthetics.” She delivered her verdict after a brief 45-minute meeting. By what miracle? Probably because Donald Trump fired, in October and unceremoniously, six of the seven members of this commission to replace them with loyalists. The project was then presented to the National Capital Planning Commission, an agency that oversees buildings and federal properties in Washington and the District of Columbia. This, chaired by Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, validated “preliminary and concluding considerations” of the 33 plans presented by the White House. Before the U.S. District Court ordered construction to stop at the request of Federal Judge Richard Leon.

Since August 2025, the project has continued to evolve with the addition, week after week, of new costly installations. In addition to its golden ballroom of more than 8,000 square meters, intended to accommodate around a thousand guests in the middle of arched windows and large golden chandeliers reminiscent of the interior decoration of Donald Trump’s residence in Florida, the east wing of the White House should be equipped with a roof resistant to drones, anti-missile bunkers, armored windows, a ventilation system resistant to biological attacks or even a hospital.

Questioned by the New York Times in early April, a former member of the National Capital Planning Commission ruled that the construction schedule made no sense. « A building of this scale requires between eighteen months and two years of prior work by teams of architects and engineers to go from the original concept to complete construction documents.he explained.

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The project is also being debated within heritage protection associations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation where president Carol Quillen said she feared that “the mass and height of the new ballroom dwarfs those of the executive residence”. The organization then filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that it had failed to follow legal requirements for assessments and obtain congressional authorization for such work. Since Sunday’s attempted attack, the administration has asked the National Trust to withdraw its legal complaint to remove this obstacle to carrying out the work. But these heritage defenders quickly responded in the negative. The battle will therefore continue in court, even if Donald Trump, immutable, believes that he ” too late ” to turn back.