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trump ballroom
Trump Cronies Forced to Delay Ballroom Vote After 98% of Public Comments Oppose ‘Corrupt’ Scheme
The president has stacked a planning commission with three of his staffers, but organizers hailed a "huge victory" Thursday after the panel delayed a vote following an outpouring of public opposition.
Mar 06, 2026
President Donald Trump has gone to significant lengths to ensure the 90,000-square-foot, $400 million ballroom he wants to replace the East Wing of the White House with is constructed swiftly—appointing his own associates and staffers to key commissions that must approve the project.
But even under the leadership of chairman Will Scharf, Trump's former personal lawyer and the White House staff secretary, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) on Thursday was forced to delay a planned vote on approving the ballroom until April 2—unable to ignore tens of thousands of public comments that have poured in denouncing the proposed ballroom as well as a parade of dozens of people who showed up at the commission's meeting to express opposition.
Scharf “cited the expected length of testimony from the more than 100 people who had signed up to say what they thought of the project, which he said might require the meeting to stretch into Friday," reported the Washington Post.
A longtime architect, David Scott Parker, told the panel that he had "grave concerns" about the exaggerated size of the planned ballroom, which "is nearly three times the original White House, in violation of classical architecture principles mandating balance.”
Rebecca Miller, executive director of the DC Preservation League, told the commission—which also includes two other White House staffers, deputy chief of staff James Blair and chief statistician Stuart Levenbach—that the proposed ballroom "is disproportionately large and impersonal and will detract from the dignified atmosphere that has characterized presidential events for centuries,” while Kyle Rowan, who described himself as an "ordinary citizen," had a succinct criticism.
“It’s ugly,” Rowan told the commissioners. “It’s too much.”
Just one speaker out of 30 expressed approval of the project.
The critics who arrived at the commission's meeting in person represented just a fraction of the criticism that has inundated officials since the panel began collecting public comments on the proposed ballroom.
More than 35,000 comments were sent in, and a New York Times artificial intelligence-powered analysis of the responses found that 98% of them were negative. The Post also used AI to determine that more than 97% of the comments were critical, and measured that finding against a sampling of comments that were manually checked.
Some of the remarks alluded to Trump's plan to fund the ballroom construction through private donations, which he has insisted will benefit taxpayers—but which Democratic lawmakers and government watchdogs have warned is an example of blatant corruption, as companies with billions of dollars in federal contracts, including Amazon, Google, and Palantir, are among the donors.
"I am sick that Trump has torn down the East Wing of the People’s House, our house, and plans to build a monstrosity ballroom funded by not 'We the People' but by corrupt, out of touch, unaccountable to anyone, billionaires. It is beyond sickening," wrote a commenter named Donna Smith.
Julie Mason added that the ballroom plan has "opened the door to excessive corruption by the president and his billionaire backers through quid pro quo," and a South Carolina resident named Barbara Bryant added that the "financing of the project is perhaps its most troubling aspect."
"The $400 million private corporate donation scheme is a blatant attempt to evade congressional oversight," Bryant wrote. "By allowing corporations with active business before the government to fund a presidential vanity project, the administration has created a fertile ground for corruption, turning a national landmark into a billboard for private interests."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed without evidence on Thursday that the public comments "are clearly stemming from an organized campaign of Trump-deranged liberals who clearly have no style or taste."
"It’s a shame that some people in this country are so debilitated with Trump derangement syndrome, they can’t even recognize or respect beauty when they see it," said Leavitt.
An Economist-YouGov poll taken last month found that 58% of Americans opposed tearing down the East Wing to build the ballroom, while just 25% supported it.
The public comments echoed those of protesters who assembled outside the NCPC's offices on Thursday at a demonstration organized by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. The group has closely followed Trump's decision to staff the commission with his own administration officials and the "myriad of conflicts of interest concerns" that have arisen as wealthy corporations have lined up to fund the ballroom.
Jon Golinger, a democracy advocate for Public Citizen who testified at the NCPC meeting Thursday, noted that one federal judge had accused the Trump administration of erecting a "Rube Goldberg contraption" to collect donations from "corporations, billionaires, and an unknown number of secret donors" while evading "congressional and public oversight and [shielding] the donors and recipients of the money from scrutiny."
“According to news reports, the expectation is that those names will be etched on the White House as part of the ballroom's brick or stone," said Golinger. "It is outrageous that the Trump administration would engrave the names of corporations with government contracts who gave them checks on the White House like a big tacky advertising billboard. I urge NCPC to explicitly prohibit them from doing so.”
At the meeting, Golinger condemned Trump's decision to stack the commission with his own staffers and said Scharf, Blair, and Levenbach lack the legally required experience in city or regional planning to sit on the panel.
“The fix is in for this project and this vote,” said Golinger.
Scharf argued he is qualified for the position due to his past work in the Missouri governor's office.
At the protest, Golinger said the commission's decision to delay the vote on the ballroom was a "huge victory," considering Trump has filled the commission with his "cronies."
"Public pressure has mattered," he said. "It's not the end of the fight, no doubt they're going to come back and try to ram it through next time, but this [delay] isn't something I even conceived."
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