The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Monday to allow White House ballroom construction to continue, halting a lower court's ruling that tried to temporarily halt work on the 90,000-square-foot space. Nancy Cordes reports.
Page A7From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 1 September 2026
Supreme Court clears Trump's ballroom same day Army secretary quits, House votes on shutdown bill.
As it ran on the front
Look, nothing to see here, this is just good government moving on parallel tracks. The Supreme Court cleared the ballroom construction — a private initiative, fully donor-funded, tasteful, historic — while completely unrelated personnel matters happen over at the Pentagon. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's resignation has nothing to do with funding priorities, it's about friction, chemistry, you know how these buildings are, lot of egos in one hallway. Meanwhile the House is handling the shutdown bill like adults, because that's what governing looks like: ballrooms AND budgets, walk and chew gum, multitasking at the highest level of — did I say ballrooms and budgets? I meant budgets. Just budgets. The ballroom's not on the budget, it's privately financed, I keep having to clarify that because people keep bringing up where the marble actually — no, it's private. It's private money. Ask the White House Historical Association, they'll confirm the donor list is confidential for security purposes, which is standard, that's standard for a project this size and this donor-sensitive.
Now, on Driscoll: resignations happen. Secretaries resign. It is completely normal for an Army Secretary to resign after friction with the Defense Secretary, that's just Tuesday in this administration, nothing here suggests the civilian side of the Pentagon is losing an argument to — is losing, I mean, having a respectful disagreement with military leadership on troop matters, that's healthy, that's how strong institutions work, they disagree respectfully and then one guy resigns.…
…(cont) And the shutdown bill — look, the House is voting, votes happen, that's the system working. If the government were actually in crisis you wouldn't see the Court simultaneously clearing a construction permit for an entertaining space at the residence, they'd be triaging, and they're not triaging, they're building, which tells you the crisis is — is being handled. Is under control. That the crisis is under control.
So to summarize: ballroom, private money, unrelated to Driscoll, unrelated to the shutdown vote, three completely independent news items that happened to clear the same afternoon, and if you're the kind of person who sees a pattern in three unrelated events happening on the same day, that's — that's actually a pattern, that's called noticing things, and I probably shouldn't have said that either.
“They're pouring marble into a ballroom the same week a guy walks off the Army's civilian side and Congress argues about keeping the lights on. That's not a coincidence, that's a budget with its priorities printed in gold leaf. When the building that gets finished on schedule is the party room, you know exactly which line item they protect first.”
“Three completely unrelated news items that happened to clear the same afternoon, that's just how a busy government calendar looks. The ballroom is privately funded so it's not competing with the shutdown bill for a dime, and Secretary Driscoll's resignation is a personnel matter, full stop, nothing to read into the timing there.”
The receipts
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll submitted his resignation directly to President Trump after months of friction with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. CBS News' Olivia Rinaldi has more.
President Trump will meet Tuesday with oil and gas executives at the White House and is expected to discuss how to expand U.S. refining capacity as part of an effort to lower gasoline prices, according to a White House official. Energy…
Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, is expected to step down after repeated clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran, the direction of the military and national security. Meanwhile, construction is moving forward…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.