The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts gave final approval Thursday to President Trump's proposed White House ballroom in a unanimous 6-0 vote, with one commissioner recusing himself because he served as the project's architect.
The approval came faster than anyone expected. The session was originally scheduled only to discuss the design. Instead, Chairman Rodney Mims Cook Jr. moved for immediate final approval, and every voting member agreed, Fox News reported.
Trump celebrated the decision on Truth Social:
"The Commission of Fine Arts just approved, unanimously, 6 to 0, with one recusal because he had a conflict in that he worked professionally on the job, the White House Ballroom. Great accolades were paid to the building's beauty and scale. Thank you to the members of the Commission!"
The ballroom, estimated at $400 million and funded entirely through private donations, will rise on the site where the East Wing once stood. The old wing was demolished in October. The new structure will more than triple the seating capacity and nearly double the square footage of the main White House building itself.
The White House has never had a proper ballroom. Administrations long before Trump's complained about the indignity of hosting State Dinners and major diplomatic events in temporary structures. The old East Wing dining room seated just 200 people, according to the White House. For a nation that regularly entertains heads of state and foreign delegations, that's not a venue. It's a bottleneck.
Cook, the Commission chairman, put it plainly at the panel's first public hearing on the proposal earlier this month:
"This is an important thing to the president. It's an important thing to the nation."
At Thursday's session, he went further, noting that Trump himself had a hand in shaping the design:
"Our sitting president has actually designed a very beautiful structure. The United States just should not be entertaining the world in tents."
That last line is worth sitting with. The most powerful country on the planet has been rolling out temporary event tents on the White House grounds to host world leaders. Not because it lacked the resources to build something worthy of the occasion, but because no one had the will or the vision to get it done. Until now.
The project's funding model should, by any reasonable standard, defuse the usual spending objections. Trump has vowed the ballroom will be entirely privately funded, describing the arrangement in December in characteristically blunt terms:
"We're donating a $400 million ballroom, and we got sued not to build it – for 150 years they've wanted a ballroom. And we're giving them, myself and donors are giving them free of charge for nothing. We're donating a building that's approximately $400 million."
He even anticipated the media's instinct to nitpick the price tag:
"I think I'll do it for less, but it's 400. I should do it for less. I will do it for less, but just in case they say 400; otherwise, if I go $3 over, the press will say it costs more."
So to summarize: a permanent, world-class addition to the White House, privately donated, solving a logistical problem that predates anyone alive today. The response from the left? A lawsuit.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a federal suit to halt construction. Democrats have criticized the project, though none have been quoted explaining what, precisely, they would prefer: more tents, presumably.
Thursday's vote was decisive but not the final hurdle. The project faces further review on March 5 before the National Capital Planning Commission, which is led by a top White House aide. Commissioner James McCrery, who recused himself from Thursday's vote, is the project's architect through his firm, McCrery Architects.
The Commission of Fine Arts was not expected to move this quickly. That it did, unanimously, signals something beyond routine bureaucratic approval. The design earned the votes on its merits. Cook did not hedge. The commissioners did not ask for more time, more studies, or more input from advocacy groups with acronyms longer than their attention spans. They looked at it and approved it.
Trump shared a rendering of the proposed ballroom on Truth Social on February 3. Less than three weeks later, the most important design authority in Washington gave its blessing.
There is something deeply fitting about a president who ran on restoring American greatness, insisting that the nation's most famous residence stop hosting diplomatic events in structures that come with assembly instructions. The White House should not look like a wedding venue that ran out of indoor space. It should look like the seat of the world's most consequential government.
The lawsuit will wind through the courts. Critics will find new objections. But the East Wing is already gone, the design is approved, and the funding doesn't cost taxpayers a dime.
For 150 years, Washington talked about building a ballroom. One president decided to actually do it.