Federal Judge Allows Some Work to Resume on Underground ‘Bunker’ Portion of Trump’s Ballroom

President Donald Trump holds an table seating chart of the new White House ballroom as meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A federal judge issued a revised order that allows President Donald Trump’s administration to proceed with construction of the underground “bunker” portion of the president’s ballroom.

Judge Richard Leon, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, originally ordered a halt to construction on Trump’s controversial $400 million ballroom on March 31.

Leon had ruled that construction of the ballroom, which Trump is funding via private donations and his own cash, would have to cease by April 14 and could only proceed with Congressional approval.

Trump slammed Leon’s ruling in a Truth Social post, sharing his dismay that the judge would block a “ballroom that is under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the Taxpayer, and will be the finest Building of its kind anywhere in the World.”

Last week, an appeals court accepted the president’s argument that the resumption of his ballroom project, which is slated to include a “massive” underground military complex, is a matter of national security.

His attorneys argued ceasing construction would leave “a massive excavation and structurally completed site adjacent to the now open and exposed Executive Mansion” that would threaten “grave national-security harms to the White House, the President and his family, and the President’s staff.”

Leon modified the parameters of his ruling on Thursday, agreeing that the underground construction project, including the bunkers, bomb shelters, and medical and military installations, could continue.

He declared that the Trump administration could take measures to secure the above-ground construction site but maintained that the president must obtain Congressional approval for his above-ground ballroom.

According to Leon’s latest injunction, the above-ground construction that can resume must be “strictly necessary to cover, secure, and protect such national security facilities” and cannot “lock in the above-ground size and scale of the ballroom.”

“National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity,” Leon wrote Thursday in a statement shared by The Washington Post.

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