Judge Says White House Can Only Build Underground Portion of Ballroom

President Trump has been dealt another setback on his massive ballroom project.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that construction can only proceed on the underground, national security–related parts of the project, and not on the 90,000-square-foot ballroom the president wants to build to entertain guests.

“National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity,” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote, saying that the White House had an “incredible, if not disingenuous” interpretation of his order last month to cease construction on the $400 million ballroom until Trump got approval from Congress.

Leon’s order in March said that only construction concerning “the safety and security of the White House” was authorized, referring to the administration’s argument that an underground emergency bunker was needed to protect the president, the first lady, and White House staff. Trump argued that the order actually allowed for construction on the entire ballroom because bulletproof glass, bomb shelters, and other security measures would be part of the building.

“This is positive for us,” Trump said at the time, adding that construction would proceed as Department of Justice attorneys appealed the ruling. Last week, a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Leon, appointed by President George W. Bush, needed to clarify the specific parts of the ballroom project where construction had to stop.

Leon again ruled against the administration, pointing out that Trump’s lawyers had previously said that the underground and aboveground parts of the project were independent of each other.

“The fact that the ballroom is planned to include security features such as bulletproof windows and a drone-proof roof … may well be beneficial,” Leon wrote, adding that the White House had “not provided any national security justification for why these features must be installed immediately.”

Trump is not going to take kindly to the news, having complained about not being allowed to “get a ballroom approved” on multiple occasions, and he is not known for respecting judicial independence. If he wants to build whatever he wants on federal property without congressional approval, though, he’s going to spend more time in court.

The first Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent has been charged in relation to President Trump’s brutal Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.

Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., 35, was charged with assault in Minneapolis on Thursday for pointing his gun at two people in a car while trying to pass them in an unmarked vehicle on the highway. Morgan told investigators that he “feared for his safety and the safety of others” after the civilian vehicle “cut him off,” according to the state’s complaint.

Morgan faces two felony counts of second-degree assault for the apparent road rage incident. There is an active warrant out for his arrest.

This is the first time ever that a federal agent has faced local prosecution for their actions while on duty, according to Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.

While this is a welcome development, it’s an absolute disgrace that Morgan is the first and only ICE agent to be charged with some form of excessive force or brutality in Trump’s 10-week operation in Minneapolis, given that federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good for no reason at all.

Franklin Graham, one of the most prominent evangelical leaders in the country, is siding with Donald Trump amid his recent Christian controversies.

The president has received nationwide backlash since Sunday for sharing an AI-generated image that depicted him as Jesus Christ. Graham brushed off the blowback in a statement on X Thursday, arguing that he didn’t believe Trump would “knowingly depict himself as Jesus,” and that he accepted the White House’s explanation: that Trump thought the heavenly portrayal suggested that he was a doctor rather than the messiah.

“When I looked at the illustration, I didn’t jump to the same conclusion as some,” Graham wrote. “There were no spiritual references—no halo, there were no crosses, no angels. It was a flag, soldiers, a nurse, fighter planes, eagles, the Statue of Liberty, and I think this is a lot to do about nothing.”

But many of Trump’s Christian supporters saw something else: the president, dressed in white and red robes, encircled in light, holding light, and sharing it with the fallen.

“I’m not a Catholic, I’m an Evangelical, but I appreciate how President Trump has defended religious freedom for people of all faiths, including millions of Evangelicals and Catholics in the U.S. and around the world,” Graham continued. “He is the most pro-Christian, pro-life president in my lifetime, and he doesn’t shy away from it.”

Graham then chimed in on Trump’s ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV, who has upset the administration by advocating for peace instead of war. Graham wrote that he hoped the pope “would have the opportunity to thank the President for his efforts to protect religious liberty for Catholics and people of all faiths.”

Trump has expressed no interest in connecting with the pope. Speaking with reporters outside the White House Thursday afternoon, Trump remarked that he doesn’t think it’s necessary to meet with the leader of the Catholic Church—a decision that could seriously injure his Republican allies in the midterms.

The Catholic Church has 1.42 billion baptized members around the world, with more than 70 million in the U.S. Roughly 20 percent of Americans identify as Catholic, making it the second most popular religion in the country behind Protestantism.

But there’s another possibilityL that Trump is merely playing coy with his disinterest in meeting the pope. The president was evidently irked by news that David Axelrod, former Obama strategist, visited the Vatican last week and had reportedly discussed efforts to get the 44th president and the Chicago-born pontiff in a room together.

Failing to meet the pope would make Trump the first modern president to break from the longstanding American tradition, which has remained intact since President Woodrow Wilson started it in 1919.

Meanwhile, even fervent MAGA politicians were not impressed by Graham’s defense.

Former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said that the evangelical missionary’s thin excuse was “one of the worst things [she’d] seen,” and included a warning from Matthew 7:15-20 about false prophets.

“Franklin Graham of all people, who is frequently at the [White House] and with Trump, should be leading Trump to be a Christian, NOT telling other Christians that Trump did nothing wrong when he committed blasphemy,” Greene wrote on X. “Trump knows what he is doing. He knows what he posted. He knows how to manipulate his followers. And he’s not sorry, he never apologized. Instead he lied, and said he was a doctor, which is also absurd.”

A Franciscan friar that spoke with CBS News earlier this week said that “no one” should try to “put themselves in the person of Christ.”

“I think that’s a little bit of a problem,” the robed friar said.

This story has been updated.

The House of Representatives voted down a war powers resolution that would have restricted President Trump’s war in Iran by just one vote Thursday, 214–213.

Representative Thomas Massie was the lone Republican to vote in favor of the measure, while Republican Representative Warren Davidson voted present and three Republicans abstained.

Every Democrat voted for the resolution except for Representative Jared Golden of Maine.

Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks proposed the bill, which “directs the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” making exceptions for extreme cases, “unless explicitly authorized” by Congress.

Before the vote, Meeks said on the House floor, “Donald Trump has dragged the American people into a war of choice, launched without congressional authorization. The president has no coherent strategy, and this open-ended, undefined military engagement is precisely what the War Powers Resolution was designed to restrain. Every day we delay, we inch closer to a conflict with no exit ramp.”

Golden also voted against a war powers resolution March 5, writing in a statement at the time that “The president has so far acted within the authorities given to him by Congress through the War Powers Act of 1973. He has been briefing Congress, and he has 60 days to make his case for ongoing operations. This is not an illegal war — but it could become one.”

Since then, despite damage to multiple schools and medical facilities in Iran as a result of the war, Golden is the only Democrat in the House who thinks that Trump’s Iran war hasn’t crossed any lines. Symbolic or not, Thursday’s vote shows that Congress is willing to let Trump keep using the military however he sees fit.

This story has been updated.

A bomb threat was reported at the Illinois home of Pope Leo XIV’s brother John Prevost on Wednesday night. This threat—which was eventually proven to be false—comes amid a week of targeted attacks on Pope Leo from President Trump regarding the pontiff’s opposition to the illegal U.S.-Israeli wars on Iran and Lebanon.

There were no injuries, and neighbors were allowed to reenter their homes after evacuation, after police conducted a comprehensive search.

There is nothing tangible that suggests the threat was connected to Trump’s attacks on the pope, and an investigation is still ongoing. Trump did, however, just invoke the Pope’s other brother, Louis—a Trump supporter who lives in Florida—in his “weak on crime” rant against Pope Leo.

“I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA,” Trump wrote on Sunday. “He gets it, and Leo doesn’t! I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country. And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.”