Ballroom Judges Slip Brutal Message Into Scathing Trump Ruling

President Donald Trump is running out of time to get his precious White House ballroom completed, following Friday’s major legal setback.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered construction on the ballroom to be stopped because Congress—not the president—has the ultimate say in major White House renovations.

The order is now on hold for two weeks to allow the Trump administration to appeal to the Supreme Court.

But if the 80-year-old president wants to go through Congress to see his vanity project through, he had better get going, the Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles and Hugh Dougherty said.

“First of all, he would have to get some legislation drawn up very, very quickly, rushed through Congress, which is… gone for its vacation,” Dougherty said on The Daily Beast Podcast.

“I don’t think he’s going to get support,” Dougherty added, citing the fuel that such a vote would give Democrats in the midterms.

“But even if he does, he then has to get it through the Senate. That might be something that could be filibustered; it depends how he draws up this legislation. The appropriation of funds could just be a budget measure, but there’s a whole can of worms here that’s been opened.”

“And he’s running out of time,” Coles added.

“He is running against the clock,” Dougherty agreed. “He’s got until… the start of January to get… his control of Congress, to get this through. But after November it’s a lame duck session.”

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During that period, many might not want to “do Trump any favors.”

In response to the appeals court’s ruling, Trump insisted the structure should be allowed to progress due to national security reasons.

“It is all tied together as one big, expensive, and very complex unit, which is vital for National Security and Military Operations of the United States of America!” the president wrote on Truth Social, adding, “This unjust decision must be overturned by the Supreme Court in its entirety.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.

As part of our America250 series, produced in partnership with PMI U.S., US Businesses of Philip Morris International, Coles also spoke with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld to discuss the future of artificial intelligence, higher education, and the labor force.

Sonnenfeld, the Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management at Yale, said that while universities don’t have a “monopoly on repositories of knowledge,” they still are the place to go in order to learn how to think.

“A lot of the advice that we were often giving people—to somehow chase this golden fleece of technology to be your solution for a great life, great career—that’s not quite it,” Sonnenfeld said, as AI has drawn concerns about taking jobs away from graduates, especially computer science students.

“But learning how to think is the role of the university. And that’s where there still is a great value added. Universities are, to this nation, one of the few sectors where we have a positive trade balance. You name all the major developments, whether or not it’s in life sciences and mRNA or anything having to do with cryptocurrency or the cloud or, of course, AI itself—it comes from the university at the root. That’s where it makes the big difference.”