Hill Republicans so far haven’t needed to weigh in on President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom plans, but a court ruling might leave them no choice but to engage.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the administration must pause construction pending “express authorization from Congress.” Trump had unilaterally torn down the historic East Wing and has forged ahead with plans to replace it with a $400 million, privately financed ballroom.

Trump’s immediate response was to refute, in a Truth Social post, the premise that he needed Congress’ permission to proceed, and his administration is now appealing the ruling in court. Some of his allies in Congress have been quick to offer support while making clear they have no plans to take action.

Lexi Hamel, a spokesperson for Rep. Mike Simpson, said in a statement Wednesday the Idaho Republican “believes the ruling is stupid” and that “nobody raised hell when Roosevelt or Truman renovated the White House (at taxpayer expense).”

But if Trump’s appeal fails, congressional Republicans will have to choose between trying to pass a bill that would give the White House clear authority to forge ahead or risk allowing delays in the project that already had a target completion date of 2028 — not long before the end of Trump’s term.

Mike Davis, a conservative judicial activist who is close to the White House, said in an interview Republicans “need to” take action.

“Are they just going to let the ballroom just sit there in disarray … they’re just going to let the construction zone be a fucking disaster for the next three years?” Davis added. “Like, come on.”

But most Republicans who sit on committees with direct jurisdiction of White House and public property matters have so far been silent on whether they’ll shepherd through legislation to protect one of Trump’s top priorities. Doing so could put them in the crosshairs of Democrats, who have already made clear they think the ballroom is proof the president cares more about entertaining wealthy donors than passing policies to lower the costs of everyday goods — and who, in the Senate, have the ability to block any ballroom authorization measure from ever reaching Trump’s desk.

“This is a very clear test of Republican priorities,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Tuesday evening. “They can either bring up the Senate-passed bill to end the DHS shutdown … or they can bring up a bill to give President Trump permission to build his $350 million ballroom to host his billionaire friends.”

The House Natural Resources Committee and Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources are responsible for authorizing projects on land operated by the National Park Service, on which the White House resides. Spokespeople for the chairs of these respective committees, Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, did not respond to requests for comment this week.

The spokesperson for Simpson, the chair of the House funding panel that deals with the Interior Department, said funding for the White House project was not in his purview. Spokespeople for the chairs of the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees with jurisdiction over the Executive Office of the President also did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Democrats have made prior, unsuccessful efforts to explicitly ban money from going toward ballroom construction as part of the appropriations process.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), a staunch Trump ally who has previously proposed adding Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore, said in a text message Wednesday he was unaware of moves by any of his GOP colleagues to introduce legislation that would authorize ballroom construction.

Speaker Mike Johnson has previously defended Trump’s decision to build a ballroom, pointing to a number of presidents who have renovated or added to the White House, including former President Barack Obama. Spokespeople for Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not return requests for comment Wednesday on the matter.

But privately, Republicans are not yet convinced they need to get involved now, given it’s an ongoing legal battle and lawmakers already have a full plate of issues to attend to in the immediate future — including ending the DHS shutdown, reauthorizing controversial spy powers and meeting Trump’s deadline for delivering a GOP-only immigration enforcement bill.

Asked if the administration would push for Congress to pass legislation to remove any doubt or chance of delay, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle offered a statement critical of the court ruling.

“President Trump clearly has the legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House — just like all of his predecessors did,” said Ingle in a statement. “We will immediately appeal this egregious decision and are confident we will prevail.”

Davis, the judicial activist, suggested that Republicans codify their approval of the project through a budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple majority for passage in both chambers. There are talks of putting two party-line policy packages together in the coming months, first to deal with ICE and Border Patrol funding and another encompassing a broader range of GOP priorities — but it’s not clear green-lighting Trump’s ballroom would comply with the strict rules governing the reconciliation process.

This isn’t the first time the courts have restrained Trump for failing to seek congressional approval for his unilateral moves: The Supreme Court recently struck down his unilateral tariffs, and lower courts have forced the ousting of U.S. attorneys who never received Senate confirmation.

Trump’s lawyers have argued there are historical precedents for his White House ballroom project, which U.S. District Judge Richard Leon directly addressed in his ruling. But while smaller projects such as Trump’s 2019 tennis pavilion “were never challenged in court,” major expansions in 1933 and 1942 — which included construction of the East Wing Trump is seeking to replace — were authorized “through general appropriations,” Leon wrote.

And a significant White House renovation under President Harry Truman was authorized and funded in a standalone 1949 law that prohibited any “change of [the] present architectural appearance of the exterior of the mansion or the interior of its main floor.”

Yet the argument that past presidents have undertaken White House construction work without incident has been popular with the few Republican lawmakers who have so far chosen to weigh in on the ruling. Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) is among those claiming past presidents have used private funds to make additions to the White House without congressional assent.

“President FDR built an indoor swimming pool with private funds. President Obama built a basketball court with private funds,” Gooden wrote on X. “Yet a single judge can block President Trump from building a PRIVATELY FUNDED ballroom that would benefit generations to come.”

Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report. 

Democratic Party leaders filed suit Wednesday to block President Donald Trump’s attempt to limit voting by mail ahead of the midterm elections.

Democrats argue that an executive order Trump signed at the White House on Tuesday, which creates an approved list of absentee voters among other actions, is an unconstitutional interference in the power of states to regulate elections.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association in suing to challenge the order.

“President Trump possesses no such authority to order such a sweeping change to American elections,” the suit argues.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on the lawsuit, but Trump dismissed the possibility of legal challenges to his order at the signing ceremony for the order.

“I don’t know how it can be challenged. … You may find a rogue judge,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “You get a lot of rogue judges, very bad, bad people, very bad judges. But that’s the only way that can be changed, and hopefully we’ll win an appeal.”

Trump’s executive order also threatens to withhold federal funds from states that don’t comply and directs the attorney general to investigate anyone who wrongfully distributes mail-in ballots.

It’s the latest escalation in Trump’s longstanding complaints about the way Americans vote as he pushes Congress to pass the GOP-backed SAVE America Act, which has cleared the House but faces an uphill battle in the Senate. He has falsely claimed on several occasions that voting by mail is uniquely vulnerable to voter fraud, despite the fact that he cast his own ballot by that method last week in a Florida congressional election.

Republican states have pushed ahead with their own plans to add citizenship requirements to voting laws, but the measures have also drawn swift legal challenges.

Democrats argued the executive order violates the First, Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendments and “dramatically exceeds his highly limited constitutional and statutory authority when it comes to regulating elections.” The lawsuit also argues that the Postal Service is being asked to go beyond its domain in building a list of eligible absentee voters.

Democratic attorneys general have been bracing for the possibility of the Trump administration interfering in this fall’s midterm elections, huddling in hotel conference rooms and over Zoom calls to war-game strategies to push back.

TMZ has launched an effort to shame members of Congress into ending their recess early and funding the Department of Homeland Security — and many congressional aides are quietly delighting in the celebrity gossip site’s interest in covering Congress.

“I am super stoked,” said one Hill staffer granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I think a lot of offices, particularly ones who aren’t in major media markets, are in for a rude awakening.”

“My attitude is any new press that forces members to be sharper and for comms staffers to be more nimble is a good thing,” the staffer added.

Staffers whose bosses end up splashed across the infamous website are likely feeling less stoked about the spottings. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was seen by a TMZ tipster at Disney World over the weekend, and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was caught on camera at a Las Vegas casino.

Garcia said he was visiting his father who lives in Las Vegas, while Graham followed up Tuesday with photos of himself in his home state.

The publication has been soliciting photos of lawmakers anywhere but Washington as the DHS impasse hurtles toward day 50. Other shots the site has obtained include Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a Florida airport, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) at his son’s basketball game and a slew of House Republicans — including Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), John McGuire (R-Va.) and David Rouzer (R-N.C.) — roaming around Scotland.

Van Orden said in a Wednesday X post that he was participating in “high level” meetings with the Irish government.

“I would like to thank @TMZ for pointing out that even though our US Senate colleagues can’t figure out how to vote to fund our entire government, and that the House voted 4 times to do so, that I will not stop working for the 3rd congressional district of Wisconsin and every American,” Van Orden said.

A second Hill staffer, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, said “there are definitely conversations on how to engage and prepare for your boss’s TMZ moment.”

While TMZ has long had a footprint in Washington, founder and executive producer Harvey Levin said in a statement Monday he is redoubling coverage of national political players — and said the ongoing DHS shutdown was an important moment to pounce.

“Last week, we interviewed a TSA worker who is struggling to survive without a paycheck, and it outraged us so much we wanted to use our platforms to show how Congress — Dems AND Republicans — have betrayed us,” Levin said. “We spontaneously came up with the idea to juxtapose members of Congress on their Spring Break against federal workers who are losing their homes, their cars, their livelihoods.”

“Short story — our D.C. presence will sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious,” he added.