The National Capital Planning Commission voted Thursday to approve President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project, pushing ahead with near-unanimous support even as a federal judge's order to halt construction looms over the ambitious addition to the executive mansion.
The approval came just days after U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Monday that construction on the ballroom needed to stop within two weeks. Only work relevant to White House security could continue under the judge's order. The collision between the commission's green light and the court's red light sets up a legal standoff with no clear resolution.
Inside the NCPC meeting, the vote was lopsided. Phil Mendelson, the Democratic chairman of the D.C. City Council, cast the only "no" vote. Two other commissioners, Linda Argo and Arrington Dixon, both appointees of Washington, D.C.'s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, voted "present." Everyone else voted in the affirmative, the Daily Mail reported.
NCPC Chair Will Scharf, who also serves as President Trump's Staff Secretary, mounted a vigorous defense of the ballroom. He read aloud several negative reviews from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other outlets, not of the current project, but of past White House renovations. His point was plain: critics have howled about every major change to the building, and history has vindicated the builders.
Scharf drew comparisons to Teddy Roosevelt's construction of the West Wing and Richard Nixon's build-out of the press briefing room. Both drew fierce opposition in their day. Both are now fixtures of the American presidency.
"Sky's fallen pronouncements from so-called historic preservationists and their allies in the press are therefore nothing new to the history of the White House."
Scharf told the commission he believed the ballroom would earn its place alongside those earlier additions. In a notable procedural move, he had the NCPC vote on amended design plans ahead of the final approval vote, a step that appeared to give the body legal cover by ensuring the commission reviewed updated plans before casting the decisive ballot.
The administration's willingness to engage with the legal and regulatory process stands in contrast to how critics have framed the project. Trump has faced a string of legal confrontations during his second term, and the ballroom fight is now among them.
Mendelson asked the commission to pump the brakes, arguing the process was too rushed. He said he was not opposed to a White House ballroom in principle. His objection was about scale.
"It's just, I'm trying to be nice here, it was just too much. It's just too large."
The ballroom addition juts out into the South Lawn, a design choice that has drawn criticism from preservation groups. But Mendelson's was a lonely voice. The rest of the commission moved forward.
The NCPC vote happened against the backdrop of Judge Leon's Monday ruling siding with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Trust had argued that Trump needed to seek Congressional approval for the project. Leon agreed, writing that no statute "comes close" to giving the President the authority to make such major changes to the White House.
Leon's language was pointed. He wrote:
"The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!"
But Leon also left the door wide open for the project to proceed through proper channels. He noted explicitly that Congress could authorize the construction at any time.
"The President may at any time go to Congress to obtain express authority to construct a ballroom and to do so with private funds."
That framing matters. Leon did not say the ballroom was a bad idea. He did not rule that the project violated some fundamental principle. He said the President needed Congressional sign-off. That is a procedural objection, not a substantive one, and it is one Congress could resolve quickly if it chose to act.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he had no plans to put the project before Congress. He also shared new ballroom designs with reporters Sunday night aboard Air Force One, signaling that the administration views the project as very much alive regardless of the court's order.
The political class in Washington has reacted to the administration's legal posture with varying degrees of outrage. Some Democratic lawmakers have responded to Trump's legal moves with more heat than light, while others have tried to use the courts as a backstop against executive action.
Outside the NCPC headquarters Thursday, Jon Golinger of Public Citizen led a small protest ahead of the vote. Golinger told the Daily Mail that more lawsuits could be filed to stall the project. He also questioned the credentials of three Trump-appointed commissioners, Scharf, White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, and White House staffer Stuart Levenbach, arguing they lacked the requisite experience for their NCPC positions.
Golinger said their affirmative votes could make the project legally vulnerable to challenge:
"If the three of them vote for this project, and those votes push this thing through. I think they make it very legally vulnerable to challenge."
He went further, arguing that the new design presentation itself created legal problems because it was not properly noticed for the meeting:
"They didn't present this new project with a legitimate, legally required notice for this meeting today. So I also would suggest that if they vote to approve a project that wasn't actually calendared today, they're putting themselves in legal jeopardy."
Whether those arguments hold up in court remains to be seen. Golinger is an activist with Public Citizen, an organization that has long opposed the project. His claims about procedural defects and commissioner qualifications are, for now, assertions, not adjudicated findings.
The ballroom project has moved fast. The Commission of Fine Arts, the other review board with oversight, fast-tracked its own ballroom vote back in February. By October, the East Wing had been demolished to make way for the new construction. The NCPC held a contentious meeting in March that included a spat between Golinger and Scharf.
As recently as Wednesday, two days after the judge's halt order, work continued on the White House ballroom. That pace has drawn criticism from opponents who say the administration is racing to create facts on the ground before the courts can intervene. But it also reflects the reality that large-scale construction projects cannot simply toggle on and off without serious cost and logistical consequences.
The pattern of using courts to slow or stop executive action is now deeply familiar. Democratic-aligned groups have rushed to courtrooms to challenge Trump on everything from immigration orders to election policy. The ballroom fight fits neatly into that playbook, a preservation lawsuit serving as the vehicle for a broader argument about executive overreach.
The NCPC approval is a significant win for the administration, but it does not resolve the legal conflict. Judge Leon's two-week halt order remains in effect. The National Trust for Historic Preservation prevailed in court. And Golinger has promised more litigation.
The path forward likely runs through one of two doors: either the administration appeals Leon's ruling and fights for the President's authority to proceed without Congress, or Trump takes Leon's own suggestion and asks Congress for explicit authorization. The judge practically wrote the roadmap.
Scharf's confidence in the project's legacy was unambiguous:
"I believe that in time, this ballroom will be considered every bit as much of a national treasure as the other key components of the White House."
History will judge whether he is right. But the opponents of this project should be honest about what they are really objecting to. They are not trying to save the White House. They are trying to stop the man who lives in it from leaving his mark on it.
