Commission, packed with Trump allies, approves White House ballroom project

The Commission of Fine Arts voted unanimously to approve the nearly 90,000-square-foot building’s design. A federal judge is weighing whether to halt the project.

A federal arts commission on Thursday voted to approve President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, even as a federal judge considers whether to halt the project, and outside architects and watchdog groups say the project is too large.

The Commission of Fine Arts — which Trump has packed with allies, including his 26-year-old executive assistant — voted unanimously to approve the design of the nearly 90,000-square-foot building, which would be the most significant change to the White House complex in decades.

“This is a facility that is desperately needed for over 150 years, and it’s beautiful,” Commission Chair Rodney Mims Cook Jr. said.

Trump pushed through a plan to build a structure that would match the “height and scale” of the main White House building, largely ignoring concerns from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, architecture experts and historic preservationists that it will be too big and spoil the centuries-old symbol of American power and democracy.

Thursday’s meeting was the first concrete checkpoint in the Trump administration’s nine-week push to get the ballroom building approved by two committees charged by Congress with reviewing designs of federal construction projects. Having secured the fine arts commission’s blessing, the president’s team will turn its attention to the second of those committees — the National Capital Planning Commission — with a goal of winning its approval in the first week of March and starting aboveground construction on the ballroom as early as April.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/19/trump-white-house-ballroom-fine-arts/