Trump’s Ballroom Plans Get Approved—but He Can’t Do Anything About It

The National Capital Planning Commission, or NCPC, issued final approval for Donald Trump’s White House ballroom Thursday, a key goalpost for the enormous development.

The decision arrived two days after U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ordered construction on the site to cease until Trump obtained congressional approval. It is not clear yet if the agency’s approval will bear any weight with regard to the halted timeline, which Trump has tried to expedite in an attempt to complete the project before he is out of office.

Leon argued in a 35-page opinion Tuesday that while the president serves as the “steward of the White House for future generations of First Families,” he does not own it, emphasizing that “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have” with regard to reimagining the White House grounds.

Trump has repeatedly rejected the fact that he needs Congress’s approval to build upon or demolish the publicly owned mansion.

The 12-person NCPC was originally set to vote on the ballroom in March, but was delayed until Thursday due to the number of individuals wishing to comment on the development at the committee meeting. Most of those who spoke were opposed, reported the Associated Press.

Trump’s idea to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the executive estate has been riddled with problems and colored by lies since he first announced the project in July. Initially, Trump pledged that the development would “be near but not touching” the White House East Wing.

Months later, his construction teams completely razed the FDR-era extension, plowing forward without prerequisite approval from the NCPC or the express permission of Congress, both of which were conveniently unavailable at the time due to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

The ballroom’s estimated price tag has been similarly difficult to nail down. Trump originally claimed that the project would cost $200 million, but a decision to tack on extra construction to the site doubled its cost to $400 million. The new building will have 40-foot ceilings, be able to accommodate up to 1,000 seated guests, and would constitute 22,000 square feet of the 90,000-square-foot development, according to projections offered by East Wing ballroom architect Shalom Baranes in January.

The ballroom is the biggest and most expensive reform Trump has proposed to the White House, but it’s far from his only attempt to remake the “People’s House” in his image. Trump also renovated Jackie Kennedy’s famous Rose Garden, mowing down flowers in order to literally pave paradise. He gutted the Lincoln bathroom, transforming it from Lyndon B. Johnson’s “favorite office” into a marble-slathered eyesore, and swapped the historic Palm Room’s lush green tones and tall ferns for white paint and framed photos of plants.

Donald Trump is preparing to release a budget plan that sets aside more than $1 trillion for defense spending in 2027, a sum that will be at least partially paid for by cuts to programs that actually help Americans.

Trump is reportedly looking to boost defense spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027, up from the nearly $1 trillion spent in 2026, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The demand for more defense funding comes amid Trump’s increasingly unpopular war in Iran, and its ever-rising price tag, unknown death toll, and vacillating objectives.

All of this comes at the cost of cutting federal programs—a tool that Democrats could use to their advantage come the midterm elections. Trump’s drastic cuts to the federal workforce and reduction on health care spending should play nicely for the Democrats who hope to highlight affordability.

Trump spoke frankly Wednesday about prioritizing paying for a war over programs such as universal daycare, Medicaid, and Medicare. So frankly, in fact, that the White House removed a recording of his speech after posting it.

Trump’s 2027 budget proposal is also expected to update 10-year deficit projections, which are currently placed at around $16 trillion. During his first term, Trump promised to erase the nation’s debt, but instead added $7.8 trillion to it. Given that the Supreme Court struck down his disastrous reciprocal tariff policy that he promised would help balance the deficit, it’s not clear how he’d make good on that promise now.

The U.S. government is staring down a projected $1.9 trillion deficit for this fiscal year, with the total national debt now pushing $39 trillion.

Pam Bondi is out of the Trump administration—and some insiders believe the underlying reason is due to an odd connection to California Representative Eric Swalwell.

Donald Trump fired Bondi Thursday, thrusting her out of government altogether and into the private sector. Her dismissal was reportedly supposed to occur Friday, but was rushed due to rampant speculation about her replacement that consumed Washington Wednesday night.

An unidentified senior administration source that spoke with the Daily Mail Thursday claimed that Bondi begged Trump to reconsider, pleading to give her more time in the role, but Trump was adamant about her departure.

“She was unhappy and tried to change his mind,” the Mail’s source said.

It was widely believed that one of Trump’s chief complaints with Bondi was her handling of the Epstein files, which remains one of the president’s most enduring scandals. But the source that spoke with Mail pointed in a different direction, positing that the sudden dismissal was in no small part because Trump believed Bondi had previously tipped Swalwell off over the FBI’s efforts to publicize decades-old files related to the lawmaker’s former relationship with a suspected Chinese spy, Christine Fang.

“She’s intervening in those matters. The White House wasn’t pleased she was intervening due to her personal friendship with Swalwell,” the source told the Mail.

Sources that spoke with Semafor also reported the Swalwell detail.

Swalwell issued a cease and desist letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday, urging the intelligence chief to commit by Wednesday not to release the files on him and Fang. Swalwell is a leading Democratic candidate in the California gubernatorial race.

“The Congressman has never been accused of wrongdoing in that matter and your attempt to release the file is a transparent attempt to smear him and undermine his campaign for Governor of California,” attorneys Norm Eisen and Sean Hecker wrote on Swalwell’s behalf. “Your actions threaten to expose you, others at the FBI, and the FBI itself to significant legal liability.”

It is not clear why Bondi would have intervened in the situation. Swalwell has been a vocal critic of the president, and has publicly chastised Bondi for failing to prosecute multiple death threats against him and his family. Nonetheless, the Mail reported that Bondi and Swalwell have a “friendly” relationship.

MS NOW reported that Trump was also frustrated with Bondi’s repeated failures in prosecuting his perceived enemies.

President Trump has fired Attorney General Pam Bondi after more than a chaotic year marked by her indignant congressional hearings and woeful mishandling of the Epstein files.

Trump announced on Thursday that Bondi will be replaced by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and she will not remain in the administration at all.

“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year. Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General.”

This is a surprising development given that other fired Trump officials received another role in the administration. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired last month, is now special envoy to the “Shield of the Americas.” Former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, fired last year over Signalgate, became the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Bondi became attorney general after former congressman Matt Gaetz’s nomination was derailed thanks to a House Ethics investigation that found “substantial evidence” he had sex with an underage girl. Bondi was confirmed in a 54–46 Senate vote, with John Fetterman being the only Democrat to vote yes.

“Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration,” Bondi wrote Thursday on X. “Leading President Trump’s historic and highly successful efforts to make America safer and more secure has been the honor of a lifetime, and easily the most consequential first year of the Department of Justice in American history.”

Bondi’s ouster is the culmination of Trump’s growing frustrations around the intense, inadvertent scrutiny that she brought upon the administration, as she went from saying the Epstein client list was on her desk, to claiming it didn’t exist, to handing out big dramatic white binders for a photo op with MAGA influencers that contained no new information. She continuously tried and failed to declare the case closed, while exposing Epstein’s victims to more abuse by identifying them in the files. Eventually, even Republicans on the House Oversight Committee agreed to subpoena Bondi over her “possible mismanagement” of the files.

This story has been updated.

Despite Speaker Mike Johnson claiming on Wednesday that he’d accept the Senate’s bipartisan deal to end the government shutdown, House Republicans adjourned the next day without putting any such bill to a vote, dragging out the shutdown for even longer.

It’s not clear why exactly the House punted on the bill, but Easter recess in Congress means that the shutdown will continue on for at least four more days.

As a result, TSA workers still won’t be paid even as Americans travel for Easter this weekend, meaning that long security lines will continue at airports. On Wednesday, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune released a joint statement saying that the House would support the Senate’s plan to fund DHS without more money for ICE and Border Patrol, and instead pursue that funding through budget reconciliation to get around a Democratic filibuster.

But it appears that Johnson, or at least his party’s caucus, are still taking their time. Democrats have held strong on the shutdown, which primarily affects agencies like the TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard, because ICE and Border Patrol have violently carried out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda without regard for the law, the safety of U.S. citizens, or the court orders rebuking them.

While Republicans have claimed that partially shutting down DHS makes Americans less safe, there appears to be little urgency in getting the agency running again, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pointed out in a statement Thursday.

“The deep division and dysfunction among House Republicans is needlessly extending the DHS shutdown and hurting federal workers who are missing another paycheck,” Schumer said, adding that they should “get to work and end the longest Republican shutdown in history.”

Trump has demanded Republicans send him a bill to fund DHS by June 1. Do Johnson and his party plan to drag out the shutdown, and the problems with ICE and Border Patrol, until then?

A combative line of questioning from Justice Amy Coney Barrett could have been the death knell for Donald Trump’s scheme to undo birthright citizenship.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued Wednesday on behalf of the Trump administration that children should not receive citizenship if their parents lack “domicile” in the U.S.—an attempt to strip citizenship from people born in the U.S. to foreign, noncitizen parents.

Evan Bernick, a professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law, explained on Slate’s Amicus podcast later that day that Barrett’s decision to home in on the issue of slavery—and the presence of people who were forced by external powers to live in the U.S.—could have torn an irreparable hole in the government’s case.

“She made very clear that she viewed the children of slaves through the lens of unlawful immigration,” said Bernick. “She thought that the situation of enslaved people’s children was not something that could be settled on the basis of any domicile requirement. Because if we think about domicile as ‘presence with intent to remain.’”

“Well, enslaved people didn’t intend to remain anywhere!” Bernick continued. “They were taken. They were forced into a place. So domicile can’t be the rule, because then you can’t unproblematically grant citizenship to the children of formerly enslaved people.”

Birthright citizenship was enshrined in 1866 by way of the Fourteenth Amendment, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Sauer was similarly flustered by a query from Justice Neil Gorsuch, who asked if the government considered Native Americans as birthright citizens. Despite the fact that native people lived on the land long before European colonizers arrived, Sauer could only point to the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 as evidence of their deserved U.S. citizenship.

“Do you think they’re birthright citizens?” Gorsuch pressed.

“No, I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens,” Sauer said.

Gorsuch asked Sauer to clarify based on the domicile of the parents.

“I think so, on our test. They’re lawfully domiciled here. I have to think that through, but that’s my reaction,” Sauer said.

Trump tried and failed multiple times over the last year to strip the constitutionally enshrined right. Mere hours after he was sworn into office, Trump signed an executive order stating that children born to immigrants on temporary visas or who are in the country illegally are not entitled to birthright status. That order was unanimously blocked by several judges in different court circuits over the last year. The Supreme Court had a chance to consider the executive order but opted to roll back nationwide injunctions instead.

This case stems from a challenge out of New Hampshire, finally bringing a birthright legal challenge to the nation’s highest judiciary. The nine-justice bench, stacked with three Trump appointees, who include Gorsuch and Barrett, heard the merits of the case with Trump in the room, making him the first sitting U.S. president ever to attend Supreme Court arguments.

The Pentagon appears to be engaged in a “casualty cover-up” of U.S. soldiers killed as a result of Donald Trump’s military onslaught in Iran, a U.S. defense official told The Intercept.

An analysis by The Intercept found that the Department of Defense has used outdated numbers in statements on casualties, resulting in undercounts of how many troops have been wounded or killed.

In a statement sent Monday, CENTCOM said that “approximately 303 U.S. service members have been wounded” since the launch of Operation Epic Fury. But that number was three days old, and excluded the at least 15 troops wounded in a strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia last week.

CENTCOM would not provide any information about the number of U.S. troops who have been killed since the start of the war, but The Intercept placed the number at around 15. Six soldiers were killed in a strike on a makeshift operations center in Kuwait, and another six died serving aboard a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq. Another soldier was killed on March 1, during an enemy attack on the base in Saudi Arabia.

“This is, quite obviously, a subject that [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth and the White House want to keep under major wraps,” said the defense official, who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity.

CENTCOM did not deign to reply to close to a dozen requests for clarification on the casualty count. CENTCOM also refused to provide information on which U.S. bases had been struck by retaliatory attacks from Iran.

“We have nothing for you,” a spokesperson told The Intercept.

Two weeks ago, U.S. CENTCOM spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins confirmed that 200 U.S. service members had been injured since the beginning of the joint U.S.-Israeli attacks. But that number did not appear to include the more than 200 sailors aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford who were treated for smoke inhalation after a fire on March 12. One sailor had to be medically evacuated from the ship, and two others were treated for lacerations.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes have reportedly rendered many of 13 U.S. military bases in the Gulf region all but uninhabitable, forcing American military service members to work remotely from hotels and office spaces. Iran’s attacks on U.S. military bases caused an estimated $800 million in damage, according to a report by the Center for Strategic & International Studies and a BBC analysis.

Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain compared the president to Jesus Christ during an Easter lunch at the White House Wednesday afternoon.

“Jesus taught so many lessons through his death, burial, and resurrection. He showed us great leadership, great transformation requires great sacrifice. And Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life,” White-Cain said with the president standing behind her. “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our lord and savior showed us. But it didn’t end there for him, and it didn’t end there for you.”

White-Cain, who has claimed in the past that the White House is “holy ground” and that “to say no to President Trump would be saying no to God,” went on to connect Trump with the Easter holiday.

“God always had a plan: On the third day, he rose, he defeated evil, he conquered death, hell, and the grave. And because he rose, we all know that we can rise. And sir, because of his resurrection, you rose up,” White-Cain continued. “Because he was victorious, you are victorious. And I believe that the Lord said to tell you this: Because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hands to.”

Trump silently said “thank you” as White-Cain concluded her speech to applause from the room.

The comparison was not well received on social media. Catholic theologian Rich Raho called the remarks “blasphemous.”

“It’s stunning to see a US Bishop standing right there on the stage while Paula White compares Trump to Jesus Christ,” Raho said, pointing out that the Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Robert Barron, was standing onstage not far from Trump.

The Reverend Benjamin Cremer also called the comments “blasphemy,” saying, “This is what it sounds like to take Jesus’ name in vain.” Jesuit priest James Martin said that White-Cain crossed a big line.

“Asking God, in a public prayer, to help a political leader make wise decisions, care for the poor, seek peace, foster harmony, and try to include all those who feel excluded? Yes. Comparing a political leader, in a public prayer, to the sinless Son of God during Holy Week? No,” Martin posted on X.

The event was supposed to be closed to the press, but the White House mistakenly uploaded the video to YouTube before removing it Wednesday evening. Do Trump and Republicans agree with Trump being fêted and deified like this?

On Wednesday, representatives for Kristi Noem said that the former homeland security secretary was “devastated” and “blindsided” by the news that her husband Bryon liked to dress in drag as a large-breasted “bimbo” woman in his spare time. On Thursday, one of the models who said Bryon was her client told The Daily Beast there was “no way in hell” his wife didn’t know.

“There is no way in hell that she did not know for that long. He didn’t just wake up two years ago and start talking to cam girls about wanting to be a woman,” webcam performer Lydia Love said. “A lot of the wives know—and either they’re in denial or they have a really secretive partner.”

Love claims that she knew Bryon was married but was unaware of his political status, and he would only show his face momentarily during their sessions. “I’m not saying that he gave me any information like his name or exact location but him showing his face was part of the arousal of ‘getting exposed’—it’s super common,” Love said.

Love said she would instruct Bryon to wear leggings, bend over, and spank himself while he donned a T-shirt stuffed with either balloons or a silicone chest plate.

The news of Bryon’s bimbo fetish, first reported by The Daily Mail, was shocking given his conservative values and proximity to Trump. The strong, God-fearing husband of ICE Barbie telling online models “You turn me into a girl,” wearing leggings, and stuffing massive balloons into his shirt transcends the ironic. And if The Daily Mail
could find this out so easily, how could Noem really just not know for that long?  

“Where my problem is, is that this is a conservative family who publicly shares values that are entirely opposite to what’s happening behind closed doors,” Love continued. “They’re building careers by pushing beliefs that they themselves don’t follow, and it’s extremely common in these circles. I hate the hypocrisy of it all. I like when people stand in what they believe in.”

The British tabloid also reported that Bryon’s messages contained a confession that he knew about the alleged affair between his wife and her former DHS aide Corey Lewandowski, raising even more questions about his fetishes—and Noem’s knowledge of it. When requested for comment, Bryon told The New York Times, “I will at some point. Today is not the day. I appreciate your heart.”

Now that the situation in Iran is thoroughly complex—enough that it could take months or even years to solve, according to some analysts—Donald Trump is attempting to convince the nation that America doesn’t need Iran, the Middle East, or the Strait of Hormuz at all.

Per Trump’s speech Wednesday night, the $25 billion sum spent on the war thus far has instead been in an attempt to “help our allies.”

“We’re now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet we are there to help,” Trump said. “We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have. But we’re there to help our allies.”

Beyond the nickels and dimes, the war has cost the lives of more than 1,937 people in Iran, including dozens of political leaders, according to Al Jazeera. At least 13 U.S. soldiers have also been killed in the war, and more than 300 have been wounded. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Monday that the conflict would be resolved in the coming weeks, though military officials have indicated that the war could rage for months or even years.

Even before Trump initiated American involvement in the war, Iran—and the Middle East at large—accounted for less than 10 percent of U.S. oil imports. Most of America’s oil, approximately 60 percent of it, comes from Canada.

But the price per barrel has nonetheless shot up, particularly after Iran sealed off the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as the single most important energy transit point in the world. (Oil prices are set globally, not by the individual countries that export it.) Situated between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the strait funnels approximately one-fifth of all crude oil shipments.

Most of that oil would head toward China or India. In 2024, the U.S. imported roughly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the strait, accounting for about 7 percent of total U.S. crude imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

On Tuesday, gas prices surpassed $4 a gallon across the nation for the first time since 2022, but Trump’s speech late Wednesday made the matter even worse. Several comments made by the president about potentially escalating the war rattled the markets, sending the price of oil surging by 13 percent.

Trump attributed the preceding increase in oil prices to the “Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.” He then promised to “hit” Iran “extremely hard.”