Two Democratic-appointed judges on the D.C. Circuit pressed the Trump administration hard Friday over whether the president has legal authority to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on White House grounds, and the government's answers did little to ease their doubts.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation against the $400 million project. The core legal question is straightforward: does federal law require express congressional approval before a new building goes up on federal land in the nation's capital? The preservationist group says yes. The administration says it already has the authority it needs.

The exchange that mattered most came when Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, posed a hypothetical to Yaakov Roth, the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the DOJ Civil Division. As The Hill reported, Millett asked whether the government's legal theory would leave citizens powerless if the administration moved fast enough.

"If the government decided very quickly and bulldozed the Statue of Liberty, the people whose ancestors, that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the government moved too fast. Nothing can be done?"

Roth's reply: "I think that's right."

That answer captures the tension at the heart of this case, and the risk the administration runs by staking out a maximalist position on executive construction authority.

The statutory fight

Federal law states that a "building or structure shall not be erected" on federal land in the nation's capital without express congressional authority. The administration argues it already has that authority under two existing statutes. One authorizes appropriations for the "alteration" and "improvement" of the White House. The other established the National Park Service and directs the Interior Secretary to "promote and regulate the use of the National Park System."

Judge Brad Garcia, a Biden appointee, was openly skeptical of the second argument. He put the question bluntly to Roth:

"Promote the use of the National Park Service equals express authority to erect buildings?"

Roth confirmed that was the government's position. Garcia acknowledged the parks law might implicitly authorize some construction but suggested the administration had to concede it offers nothing more than that, a far cry from the "express authority" the statute demands.

Garcia went further, openly siding with the plaintiffs' reading of the law that governs White House appropriations:

"It does almost entirely fit with the story the Trust would tell, which is Congress wanted to authorize the president and doesn't really care all that much who he hires and how much he pays them. But it sure cares a lot about what is done to the White House, and so it's going to retain more of a leash on the kinds of activities the president can undertake."

That framing, Congress loosened the purse strings but kept a tight grip on what gets built, is exactly the argument the National Trust wants the court to adopt.

Standing: the administration's best card

The sole Trump appointee on the panel, Judge Neomi Rao, took a different tack. She zeroed in on whether the National Trust for Historic Preservation has legal standing to bring the lawsuit at all. The group's case rests in part on one of its members who takes walks near the White House.

Rao was unimpressed.

"She says that she's going to walk past the White House maybe once a month. She doesn't really say anything specific."

Standing is a threshold question. If the court decides the preservationist group lacks it, the merits never get reached, and the project proceeds. Thaddeus Heuer, the attorney for the National Trust, pushed back, arguing the group's position would not mean that just anyone who walks past a government building can sue.

But Rao's line of questioning suggests the administration may have its strongest argument not on the substance of the law but on the procedural question of who gets to challenge the project in the first place.

Construction continues, for now

The legal timeline adds another layer. A federal judge previously halted above-ground construction on the project. But the D.C. Circuit allowed work to continue while it considers the appeal. That means construction is moving forward even as the court weighs whether it should be happening at all.

The administration has also drawn a line between the ballroom itself and below-ground security features, arguing the underground work should proceed regardless of the outcome. That argument gained new weight after two recent shootings near the president's location, which the administration has cited to emphasize a national security need for the project.

Last fall, Trump tore down the East Wing to make way for the new structure. He originally announced the ballroom would be funded with private donations.

Congress balks

The courtroom fight is not happening in a vacuum. Trump has turned to Congress as courts have emerged as a roadblock, but lawmakers in his own party have not rallied behind him.

Earlier in the week, Republicans stripped from a legislative package a provision that would have provided $1 billion for the project. A day before the oral arguments, six GOP senators voted with Democrats on a proposal that would have made clear the president cannot move forward with the ballroom.

That bipartisan resistance matters. If the administration's legal argument depends on Congress having already granted authority, the fact that Congress is actively declining to grant new authority, and that members of the president's own party are joining that effort, undercuts the narrative that this is simply a preservationist group standing in the way of presidential prerogative.

Heuer, the Trust's attorney, drove the point home during oral arguments:

"That's not what the statutes say, and that's what the constitutional framework requires, which is that you do go to Congress, because Congress controls federal property."

What comes next

The D.C. Circuit has not announced when it will rule. Construction continues in the meantime under the appeals court's order. The administration's below-ground security work proceeds on a separate track.

The panel's composition, two Democratic appointees who pressed hard on the merits, one Trump appointee focused on standing, gives the administration reason to worry about the outcome on the central legal question. But if Rao can persuade even one colleague that the National Trust lacks standing, the project survives without the court ever reaching the harder statutory questions.

The case distills a familiar constitutional tension: what a president can do with federal property when Congress has not clearly said yes, and has, in recent days, come close to saying no.

If the administration believes "promote the use of the National Park System" is express authority to erect a $400 million building, the English language has a problem, and so does the government's case.