White House preservation group flattens lies in Trump’s ballroom court filing
A demolition crew takes apart the facade of the East Wing of the White House, where U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed ballroom is being built, in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 21, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
May 08, 2026
ALTERNET
The National Trust for Historic Preservation submitted its response to a court filing from President Donald Trump demanding his ballroom as a necessary security measure after a gunman rushed law enforcement at the White House Correspondents' dinner.
“What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been demanding that a large, safe and secure Ballroom be built on the grounds of the White House” Trump wrote on the Sunday following the dinner. NBC News characterized the claim as “without evidence.”
“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!” Trump added.
In a legal brief, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward made four major errors with falsehoods, the Trust wrote in its response filed late Thursday, according to national security expert Marcy Wheeler.
"The Defendants make multiple factual representations to the Court that the Defendants’ counsel know to be false," the filing explains.
First, the National Trust said the White House claimed they were “shown detailed plans and specifications of this knitted, unified and cohesive structure by Top Officers and Leaders in both the Military and Secret Service.”
"This statement is false: The National Trust has never been shown non-public plans or specifications of any sort," the National Trust explained. They went further, citing the DOJ's filing, which claimed that doing so would compromise "the interests of national security."
The second falsehood the National Trust listed addresses the DOJ's claim that the National Trust was “asked by the United States Military not to bring this suit because of the Top Secret nature of the important facility being built." It's outright false, the National Trust said.
Third, the DOJ claimed that “Congress has never dictated or tampered with the zoning, permitting or architectural aspects” of any White House project.
The National Trust called it false, but further pointed out that in a previous filing, the DOJ acknowledged that Congress “inject[ed] itself into White House architectural choices” during the 1949 renovation.
Finally, the DOJ made a bizarre assertion that the National Trust's case is claiming standing based on a woman "walking her dog in the vicinity of the White House."
In fact, the standing is a National Trust board member, "who is the former senior historian at the Historic American Buildings Survey of the National Park Service, the former Vice President of the D.C. Preservation League, the author of six books on American vernacular architecture and a regular visitor to President’s Park."
The filing goes on to say that the motion from Trump's team rushes "to undo an injunction they have never accepted, and which they have tried to misinterpret out of existence."
The Trump team is also acting as if the construction has somehow been stopped. The National Trust refutes that too saying, "to date — construction has continued unabated. Work at the East Wing site has not been paused for even a single minute, because the injunction has not yet gone into effect."
It also attacked the filing as "reckless" for claiming that the lawsuit makes the hyperbolic accusation that “endangers the lives of all Presidents, current and future.” It also alleges such a claim is "unprofessional" for the lawyer to have made.
In their final paragraphs, the National Trust said that the filing might be great for the likes of Truth Social but that in a federal filing, such false accusations aren't permitted.
Trump’s other big project 'something more deranged' than just bad taste
U.S. President Donald Trump holds a model of an arch monument during a ballroom dinner in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
U.S. President Donald Trump holds a model of an arch monument during a ballroom dinner in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
May 08, 2026
ALTERNET
The White House ballroom might be the giant, gaudy vanity project that is dominating President Donald Trump's mind the most, but it is far from the only one he is pursuing, and according to a new interview from the New York Times, that other project represents "something more deranged" than simply being in bad taste.
Alongside the $400 million (plus $1 billion) ballroom, the Trump administration is also forging ahead with the construction of a massive "triumphal arch," planned to be around 250 feet tall and 165 feet wide, and situated across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. Like the ballroom, the arch has been thoroughly rejected by voters in poll after poll, while critics have warned that the giant structure would be hugely out of scale with the rest of the city's landmarks and would obscure the view of some of them.
Owen Hatherley is an author who has written multiple books about the cross-section of politics and architecture. On Friday, the Times published an interview with him conducted by opinion editor John Guida. In speaking about Trump's various vanity construction projects, he did not hold back.
"On some level, it’s a provocation, a deliberate assault on good taste and sensibilities," Hatherley said, about the ballroom in particular, later adding, "What Trump is proposing is a fake 21st-century neoclassical annex to a largely 20th-century building that is bolted onto an extremely heavily altered original that had to be substantially redesigned by Thomas Jefferson in the first place because it wasn’t very good."
While Hatherley, a Brit, admitted to ultimately not understanding the attachment Americans feel towards the White House, on the subject of the arch, he said that it was "something else, something more deranged, and here it’s impossible to extricate it from the current war and the nonsense that the administration throws out about it on a daily basis."
Guida pressed in response to that comment, asking if the "triumphal" arch could be seen as similar to former President George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner and speech about the war on terror in 2003.
"Something like that — the mission has not been and will not be accomplished," Hatherley agreed.
Alongside the $400 million (plus $1 billion) ballroom, the Trump administration is also forging ahead with the construction of a massive "triumphal arch," planned to be around 250 feet tall and 165 feet wide, and situated across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. Like the ballroom, the arch has been thoroughly rejected by voters in poll after poll, while critics have warned that the giant structure would be hugely out of scale with the rest of the city's landmarks and would obscure the view of some of them.
Owen Hatherley is an author who has written multiple books about the cross-section of politics and architecture. On Friday, the Times published an interview with him conducted by opinion editor John Guida. In speaking about Trump's various vanity construction projects, he did not hold back.
"On some level, it’s a provocation, a deliberate assault on good taste and sensibilities," Hatherley said, about the ballroom in particular, later adding, "What Trump is proposing is a fake 21st-century neoclassical annex to a largely 20th-century building that is bolted onto an extremely heavily altered original that had to be substantially redesigned by Thomas Jefferson in the first place because it wasn’t very good."
While Hatherley, a Brit, admitted to ultimately not understanding the attachment Americans feel towards the White House, on the subject of the arch, he said that it was "something else, something more deranged, and here it’s impossible to extricate it from the current war and the nonsense that the administration throws out about it on a daily basis."
Guida pressed in response to that comment, asking if the "triumphal" arch could be seen as similar to former President George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner and speech about the war on terror in 2003.
"Something like that — the mission has not been and will not be accomplished," Hatherley agreed.
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