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 Minority 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?