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Supreme Court Temporarily Permits Continued Construction of White House Ballroom

morning · · thread: US Appeals Court Halts Construction of Trump's White House Ballroom

11 sources across 8 countries

Who reported this

  • CNN United States · Centre-left · Warner Bros. Discovery
  • Associated Press United States · Centre · Non-profit news cooperative
  • Bloomberg United States · Centre · Bloomberg L.P. (Michael Bloomberg)
  • Wall Street Journal United States · Centre-right · News Corp (Murdoch family trust)
  • La Tercera Chile · Centre-right · Copesa (Saieh family)
  • Der Spiegel Germany · Centre-left · ~50% staff-owned
  • South China Morning Post Hong Kong · Centre-right · Alibaba Group
  • The Japan Times Japan · Centre · News2u Holdings
  • Aftenposten Norway · Centre-right · Schibsted, Tinius Trust foundation
  • El Pais Spain · Centre-left · Grupo PRISA
  • Reuters United Kingdom · Centre · Thomson Reuters Corporation

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

US Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay on Friday allowing President Donald Trump to continue construction of a new ballroom at the White House. The order temporarily freezes a lower court ruling that would have halted the project at midnight. The Supreme Court will now take additional time to consider the administration's formal request to allow the work to proceed while a lawsuit from a historic preservation group continues.

The project is estimated to cost 400 million dollars and covers approximately 90,000 square feet. According to filings from the Trump administration, the project is 65 percent complete and crews have been working 20 hours a day, seven days a week. The construction involves the demolition of the former White House East Wing to make room for the ballroom and an extensive underground military complex.

President Trump and his legal team argue that the project is a necessity for national security. They cite various threats and assassination attempts against the president as justification for the secure facility, which reportedly includes a bunker with reinforced concrete designed to withstand drones, missiles, and nuclear explosions. Trump stated on social media that the complex will be the greatest of its kind and is being built under budget and ahead of schedule.

Opponents of the project, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, argue that the president is violating the law by proceeding without specific authorization from Congress. A DC appeals court previously ruled that the decision to redesign the White House rests with Congress rather than the executive branch.

Outlets with a center left lean emphasized the controversy surrounding the project's legality and the destruction of the historic East Wing. Outlets with a center right lean focused more on the security justifications and the scale of the military complex. Center outlets primarily focused on the procedural nature of the Supreme Court's temporary stay.

How each side framed it

Centre-left
Emphasized the legality of the project, the lack of Congressional approval, and the loss of historic architecture.
Centre
Focused on the legal procedure of the administrative stay and the basic facts of the case.
Centre-right
Highlighted the national security justifications and the scale of the military complex.

Sources

93% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.