Topline

President Donald Trump said his White House ballroom will feature space outside of the White House for “cocktails” in addition to “bomb shelters” and stone that lasts over 1 million years, he told reporters while raving about the structure his administration is rushing to build before a court can stop it.

Key Facts

Trump gave a rapid-fire breakdown of the features of the ballroom while giving reporters a tour of the construction site, along with the new helipad being built on the White House lawn.

He said the stone being used for the project “will never break, it will never leak,” is “rated a million-year plus” and weighs “35,000 pounds per square inch.”

The ballroom, he said, will allow patrons to “get out of the car and they walk down this path onto that and they can have cocktails and everything outside of the White House and then they go into the ballroom,” which is also “so much a military component with the drones and bomb shelters and everything else we have in there.”

Trump’s latest diatribe on the project came as the Supreme Court is considering whether to weigh in on the project after lower courts ruled it can’t continue without congressional approval.

In its latest argument, the Trump administration told the high court construction is too far along to be stopped now, and that crews aren’t slowing down, working 20 hours a day, seven days a week in an apparent attempt to complete as much of the structure as possible before the court can stop it (the ballroom is scheduled to open in 2028).

Trump said Wednesday he “can’t imagine” the conservative-majority court ruling against the ballroom, insisting, “we’ve gotten tremendous architectural reviews, it’s beautiful.”

Key Background

The Justice Department argued in a filing Wednesday that it could harm national security interests to stop construction now, since the project includes a new underground security complex. It also took issue with claims made by the National Trust for Historic Preservation—which is suing to block the ballroom construction—that the project is unsightly, arguing it creates a “see something, sue something” precedent that would allow people to bring legal action any time the government does something they don’t like. The National Trust, meanwhile, has accused the Trump administration of trying to “outrun judicial review” by rushing to complete the ballroom before the court can stop it. The Trump administration brought the ballroom case to the Supreme Court earlier this month after an appeals court sided with lower courts in ruling the project can’t continue without congressional approval.

What To Watch For

The appeals court ruling that would stop construction of the ballroom would take effect Friday without intervention from the Supreme Court.

further reading

Trump Asks Supreme Court To Allow White House Ballroom Construction (Forbes)