President Trump shows a rendering of his proposed $250 million White House ballroom on Oct. 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C.

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The Supreme Court dominated Friday that President Trump can — for now — transfer ahead with development of his ballroom on the website of the former East Wing of the White House with no need approval from Congress.

The new ballroom is estimated to price taxpayers at least $300 million despite the president saying repeatedly that taxpayers would not foot the invoice.

The ruling comes after months of back and forth between the Trump administration and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued to cease the development of the ballroom. The nonprofit group has argued that the president must get approval from Congress to construct over the East Wing of the White House, the facet that held workplaces for the first girl.

The new ballroom is expected to be a 90,000-square-foot addition to the White House and twice the measurement of the important half of the White House complicated.

Trump has argued for months that the new ballroom is a necessity, usually pointing to the lack of house to host occasions with overseas dignitaries. He’s also said that the ballroom will home crucial nationwide safety advantages, including bomb shelters, a hospital, sniper nests and a drone port.

The Supreme Court had until Friday to weigh in after decrease courts had differing rulings on the ballroom for the last few months.

In a transient order, signed by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court docket stayed the decrease court docket ruling to pause development.

In their transient filed earlier this week, the belief asserted that if the Supreme Court allowed development to proceed at this time, they were successfully ending the case.

“Rather than obtain permission from Congress, Petitioners have instead decided to try to outrun judicial review” by accelerating development. “It is clear that in Petitioners’ view, if the Court grants their stay application, this case is over—despite every court to have reviewed their project having found it to be patently unlawful, and no matter the fact that this Court has not reviewed those decisions on the merits,” they wrote.

The court docket proceedings began in March, when Republican-appointed federal Judge Richard Leon dominated against Trump on the ballroom, saying the development wanted to cease unless it was additions to the White House that concerned security and safety.The ruling then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which determined that development could briefly proceed. Leon then clarified and said below-ground development of the ballroom could proceed, but above-ground could not.

Trump responded on social media, writing, “It’s all tied together as one big, expensive, and very complex unit, which is vital for National Security and Military Operations of the United States of America!”

The case then went back to the appeals court docket but the Trump administration requested an emergency attraction with the Supreme Court.

Construction of the ballroom started last July and has concerned closing off entry to the north facet of the White House and Lafayette Park, which were beforehand open to the public. Polling exhibits the challenge, alongside with many of Trump’s other efforts to remake the capital metropolis, are unpopular among voters.

An April ballot from Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos confirmed 56% of Americans did not approve of Trump’s choice to tear down the East Wing and construct the ballroom.

NPR’s Emily Feng contributed reporting from Washington.