National Park Service v. National Trust for Historic Preservation
5-4
The podcast episode discusses the Supreme Court case National Park Service v. National Trust for Historic Preservation, focusing on Donald Trump's
Key takeaways
- The Supreme Court's decision allows the Trump administration to proceed with the White House ballroom project despite lack of congressional approval.
Main topics
- Supreme Court decision on presidential authority
- Historic preservation rights
Notable quotes
"We have to let the President build a ninety thousand square feet of ballroom."
Conclusion
The episode concludes by emphasizing how the Supreme Court's ruling enables
Transcript preview
Speaker 4 (0:04) Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this week's episode of 5 to 4, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are talking about National Park Service v. the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. Folks, we are talking ballrooms. In October of 2025, Donald Trump ordered the demolition of the White House's historic East Wing to make room for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom and, underneath, a military bunker. To try and stop construction on the ballroom, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit on behalf of one of their volunteers. They argued that Trump couldn't build his ballroom without congressional approval, and that their volunteer, an architectural historian, would suffer professional and personal injuries if the ballroom were constructed. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court granted an emergency request by the Trump administration, ruling that the National Trust for Historic Preservation did not have standing to sue. and allowing construction to continue while the case moves through the courts. This is 5 to 4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. Speaker 5 (1:13) Welcome to 5 to 4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have left our civil rights weak and dilapidated, like Michael's immune system. I'm here with Pete. I'm here with Peter. I'm here with Peter. Always. Speaker 5 (1:30) I'm here with Rhiannon. Hey, everybody. And Michael. How you doing, buddy? Speaker 3 (1:35) Better. Better. I was pretty sick. I had a big weekend. Speaker 2 (1:39) Yeah. Speaker 3 (1:40) Saturday night. I'm in Charleston. Speaker 2 (1:43) Okay. Speaker 3 (1:43) I've been drinking all day. Speaker 2 (1:45) I haven't Speaker 3 (1:46) had anything to eat since 1 p.m. except some mushrooms and chocolate. Chocolate bar mushrooms. And it's like 10.30. I'm with these two girls that I don't really know. Oh, Speaker 5 (2:01) my God, man. Speaker 3 (2:02) And we're trying to get an Uber to another bar. Sure. And this girl's like, oh, that's our Uber. And it's this black Escalade tinted windows. So I was like, oh, she opted for Uber Black or whatever. Like, fancy. Speaker 2 (2:14) I Speaker 3 (2:15) walk over. I open the door. I put one foot in and go, for Samantha, you know, making sure it's our Uber. Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:23) And Speaker 3 (2:23) the driver turns to me and says, I'm fucking police. Get the fuck out of my car. Speaker 2 (2:29) Holy shit. And Speaker 3 (2:30) I see that it is an unmarked car, but not a plainclothes police officer. He's in uniform. He's in uniform inside Speaker 2 (2:36) those tinted windows. He's Speaker 3 (2:38) got the tack vest on, you know, over the uniform. He looks like he's going to tear my head off. Speaker 2 (2:44) Why are his doors unlocked? Seriously. Speaker 3 (2:47) Seriously. I fucking panicked. I ran away. I closed the door. I closed the door and immediately- Michael Jason takes off. Speaker 5 (2:57) I was like, I'm out of here. I feel like that sounds crazy to some degree, but it's the safest thing. Just get as far away as possible before they have an opportunity to escalate and do anything stupid. Speaker 2 (3:07) We've done the case on this, though. Unfortunately, that is reasonable suspicion. And after that, he can tail you and arrest you. Speaker 5 (3:13) It is, but he's got to catch you. Oh, Speaker 3 (3:16) disaster. That's funny. Anyway, yeah, I got sick. Speaker 5 (3:18) If it was Samantha, he would have let her in the car. Speaker 5 (3:22) Come on in, sweetie. Speaker 2 (3:24) That's the lesson. Always let the girl open the Uber door first. Right here, I am trying to be a gentleman. Speaker 5 (3:30) Right. Anyway, that's what you get for hanging out in Charleston. Speaker 2 (3:33) I've ever been. Speaker 5 (3:33) In many ways, it's very nice, but there is a deep, dark energy. I think I told you guys this, that we went for like a little honeymoon trip and we get to the hotel, which is like an old mansion. And the lady at Speaker 4 (3:46) the Speaker 5 (3:46) front desk, she's like, oh. This is for your honeymoon. She turns to my wife and is like, I can be the first person to book you under your new name. And she's like, no, I'm not changing my name. And the energy in the room. The lady Speaker 3 (4:05) and Speaker 5 (4:06) the bell hot boy who gives you a tour of the mansion. They're like, oh, these fucking big city Speaker 3 (4:13) liberal atheist. Give them the gay Speaker 5 (4:17) room then. That was a microcosm of my experience in Charleston, which like it was a very nice hotel. It was lovely in many ways, but there's just a dark undercurrent in that city. Speaker 2 (4:28) Started the Civil War? A little bit. Yeah, Speaker 5 (4:30) a little bit. Started Speaker 2 (4:31) the Civil War, started Speaker 5 (4:32) slavery, started the fight with Michael in the car. Yeah. Many of America's great battles. Great conflicts. Speaker 5 (4:44) Some good museums, but Michael, I feel like you didn't get to those based on what I'm hearing. Speaker 3 (4:50) That is correct. It wasn't that kind of trip. No museum stops. Different Speaker 2 (4:55) kind of trips. More of a do mushrooms with strange ladies kind Speaker 5 (4:58) of Speaker 2 (4:58) trip. All Speaker 5 (4:59) right. Today's case, National Park Service versus National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. It's the ballroom case, folks. Talking ballroom here. Last fall, Donald Trump. on nothing but a whim, demolished the east wing of the White House. He planned to replace it with a ballroom, a space for boys to dance. Construction began. But some folks at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is a nonprofit, sued to stop the construction. They said, this is illegal. Donald Trump does not have the power to do any of this. Yeah. But the Supreme Court, in a five to four decision, Speaker 2 (5:43) so that those folks cannot sue. I mean, this is one of the more ridiculous, sort of absurdist Trumpian stories that has dominated the headlines. So people will remember Trump demolished the East Wing, the historic East Wing of the White House last fall. And this has been on his mind for years. Apparently in 2010, he called a senior advisor to President Obama and he offered to build them a ballroom. A Speaker 3 (6:09) modular ballroom. Speaker 2 (6:11) Yeah, yeah. He said, like, you can put it together and take it apart. And so, Speaker 3 (6:16) of course, now he's like, I need to build it for real. I need to build a permanent one. Speaker 2 (6:20) Yeah. Let's start demoing. Speaker 5 (6:22) Unequivocal funniest thing he's done. Unequivocal funniest thing he's done is just knock down a huge chunk of Speaker 4 (6:28) the White House without notice. Speaker 5 (6:30) Yeah. Yeah. Sorry to the folks at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, but we differ on this. I got a Speaker 2 (6:37) chuckle out of it. Sorry you were offended. Yeah. And why was he doing that? Well, he announced that his administration was going to be building a big ballroom. Let's talk a little bit about the plans for the ballroom, which actually were not released at this point when they were demolishing the East Wing of the White House or even right after the demolition had happened. But in the subsequent months, the plans for this ballroom have come out. It is a proposed 90,000 square foot structure. Now estimated, at least Trump is admitting, to cost $400 million. Meanwhile, The Post is reporting that it's more like $600 million. There's a New York Magazine article that estimates this at $800 million for cost. The ballroom is supposed to seat 1,000 people, have 40-foot ceilings. There will be a commercial kitchen built. There will be a movie theater built. And we'll get into how even these plans have expanded, let's say, since the initial announcement. Now, $400 million, where the heck does that come from? Well, Trump is saying that it's coming from him as a private donor, not in his capacity as president, I guess, but him as a private donor and, quote, other patriot donors. I gave what I could, you know. I'm sure you did, Peter. And so about a month after this was announced, meaning... The ballroom, but also like the demolition happening. Trump's pick for head of the National Capital Planning Commission. This is the federal agency that's tasked with approving construction work and renovations on government buildings in D.C. The head of that federal agency, Will Scharf, of course, handpicked by Trump, said the demolition of the East Wing doesn't require this agency's approval. He said we only have to approve vertical builds. You getting rid of something, you demolishing something, you planning a construction site. I don't have anything to do with that, he said. Speaker 5 (8:37) Right. Speaker 2 (8:38) In October of last year, Trump hosted a dinner at the White House for donors who had agreed to contribute to the ballroom. Guests there include executives from Amazon, Apple, Coinbase, Comcast, Google, Lockheed Martin, and Meta, just so you know. And the White House also in the same month, like around the time of this dinner, they shared a list of 37 ballroom donors. Of course, they included those big tech companies, et cetera, but also some individuals of note, oil tycoon Harold Hamm, the Winklevoss twins are on this list of private donors, and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman. Blackstone, not to be confused with BlackRock, et cetera, but they're all evil. You know, I don't need to go into the details. Speaker 5 (9:20) Blackstone's Speaker 2 (9:21) worse. We could argue about it, I guess. I mean, it's a real race to the fucking bottom, isn't it? Speaker 5 (9:26) Private equity always worse than hedge funds in my mind. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 (9:29) Personal Speaker 5 (9:29) feeling I have. Speaker 2 (9:30) All right. All right. Yeah. Not to bring politics into it. Speaker 5 (9:32) Je accept. Speaker 2 (9:34) So last December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, this nonprofit organization, sued the Trump administration to halt construction of the new ballroom. Their argument being, whoa, you guys have skipped. all of the necessary steps, the National Capital Planning Commission, that federal agency, never got. plans filed even for the construction, for the new build, forget the demolition. No environmental impact statement was prepared. No congressional approval was given for this construction. And there was no public comment period. All of these things are required, necessary for construction of this size that the federal government is overseeing, much less the fucking White House. So it's after this lawsuit is filed. And after, importantly, the district court in D.C. ordered that construction had to stop until the project, like, got congressional approval. It's after that that Trump announced that a massive military complex was also being built underground. It was a new, quote, presidential emergency operations center. He said. to reporters aboard Air Force One back in March. We have bomb shelters that we're building. We have a hospital and very major medical facilities that we're building. We have all of these things. So that's called, I'm allowed to continue building. Speaker 5 (10:55) Meaning, Speaker 2 (10:56) now he's brought, of course, that age-old argument, national security, into this to justify the continued construction. Speaker 5 (11:05) You might have thought this was just a ballroom. No, it's like a fucking transformer situation. There's a military base under Speaker 3 (11:11) here. Speaker 5 (11:11) Yeah. Speaker 2 (11:12) So then, again, his handpicked head of the National Capital Planning Commission goes ahead and approves the ballroom design. Timing of this, though, when did that approval come through? That was during the public comment period that they did later open up. And just a broad look at that comment period and the messages that came in, the New York Times found that 98 % of the more than 32,000 messages received in the public comment period were negative. Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, that case that the National Trust for Historic Preservation had filed is. making its way through the courts with injunctions being issued, injunctions on the construction, then a temporary stay on the injunction to say, no, construction can continue. While the appellate court reviews the case, decides the case, then an injunction being reissued. And when it comes to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court also issued a temporary stay, allowing construction to continue while the case was pending at the court. That's how we get to this per curiam. opinion where the Supreme Court says, you're good to go. Keep on Speaker 5 (12:21) building. So let's talk about the law here. As the court repeatedly reminds us in this case, this is not about whether the ballroom is legal or illegal. This is about whether the National Trust for Historic Preservation has the ability to sue over it, whether they have standing. This is a per curiam opinion, like we mentioned. That means no single justice is listed as the author. We've talked about this, but like historically, this has been used to signal unity in the court, often in like uncontroversial situations. But now you see this almost inverted where they use it almost cynically, like in controversial cases, as if to pretend that the court's unified when it's not. It's also possible that they're using it because like no single justice wrote the opinion that they like shared writing duties. Group project. Although this is pretty clearly Neil Gorsuch, right? Am I? Am Speaker 3 (13:10) I Speaker 5 (13:10) crazy here? It reads that way. I get that. Speaker 3 (13:12) Although there weren't any rhetorical questions. There is Speaker 2 (13:16) one paragraph that's like, and consider this, period. That's true. That's very Gorsuch. Yeah. It's like three words. Yeah. Speaker 3 (13:25) Okay. I'm sold. I'm sold. Speaker 5 (13:27) Yeah. That is Gorsuch, right? At least that section has got to be Gorsuch. So there's a very interesting framing throughout this opinion. The opening line is. In October 2025, the federal government started a project to replace the East Wing of the White House. Speaker 2 (13:45) The Speaker 4 (13:45) federal Speaker 5 (13:46) government. I noticed this too. When Trump started tearing down the East Wing, he did that without any authorization from Congress, right? He did it without