6 minPolitics
National Trust sues to stop Trump's ballroom and Kennedy Center changes
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has launched a $10 million fund to back legal battles over the East Wing ballroom, the Kennedy Center and a proposed triumphal arch, as federal rules for historic sites face challenge.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Washington nonprofit, is preparing a prolonged legal fight to defend some of the country's best-known historic sites after a series of projects linked to President Trump have come under challenge. The group has launched a campaign to raise $10 million over three years to support its legal defense, public advocacy and community action wherever historic places are threatened.
The campaign, called the Historic Preservation Defense Fund, was announced in late September at the 2026 National Preservation Summit by the trust's president and chief executive, Brent Leggs. He described the current threats as «generational and existential,» comparing them to the urban renewal of the 1950s and 1960s that led to the demolition of historic buildings across the country, including New York City's Penn Station. The defense effort is also aimed at protecting the foundations of the National Historic Preservation Act, passed in 1966, and its Section 106 review process, which requires federal agencies to weigh how projects they undertake or fund could affect historic places and gives the public a chance to comment before decisions are final.
Early support has arrived in the form of an anonymous $1 million donation structured as a one-to-one matching gift. Leggs said he expects it to attract gifts of $25,000 to $100,000. He described the scope of the campaign as broad, with money to be directed nationwide and prioritized by urgency. «It will allow the National Trust to work alongside new and existing partners to mitigate threats impacting national historic landmarks in our nation's capital,» he said, «but also to respond to threats that are impacting local communities across the country.» The trust was chartered by Congress in 1949 to give the public a say in decisions about the nation's most important historic places.
The fund comes as several high-profile lawsuits are under way in Washington. In December, two months after the administration razed the East Wing to make way for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, the National Trust sued President Trump and several federal agencies to halt construction, arguing the project lacked congressional authorization and bypassed required federal reviews. A federal judge agreed in March, barring above-ground work without Congress's approval while allowing underground construction to continue. After an appeals court upheld that order in August, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, allowed work on the gilded addition to proceed, saying the trust likely lacked standing to sue. The majority did not rule on whether the ballroom is legal, but Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissent that the project was «likely unlawful.» The case remains pending in the lower courts.
The trust has also joined a separate lawsuit over the Kennedy Center. After Trump's takeover of the center and his talk of taking the Edward Durell Stone-designed building «down to the steel,» the National Trust joined seven co-plaintiffs, including the American Institute of Architects, the DC Preservation League and Docomomo US, in a suit this spring. It seeks to prevent Trump and the Kennedy Center board from making major alterations without congressional approval or compliance with historic preservation laws. Leggs said the fund is meant in part to strengthen coalitions like this one. «Part of the inspiration behind the fund is for the National Trust to be resourced to advance a united preservation movement,» he said.
A further dispute centers on a proposed 250-foot concrete triumphal arch at Memorial Circle, on national park land at the end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge. First proposed in October 2025, the arch would be topped by a gilded winged figure and stand more than twice as tall as the 99-foot Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service found it would adversely affect more than three dozen historic sites, from the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District to the National Cathedral, but the administration has continued to press ahead. Arlington County Board officials have sued the Interior Department and the Park Service to block the project, which they called «Trump's latest vanity project,» arguing the agency downplayed the arch's harms and ignored the National Environmental Policy Act.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the federal body that advises on preservation policy, has largely backed the arch. Twenty of its 24 seats are filled by the president's appointees. The council ended the arch's Section 106 consultation midway through, and its vice chairman, Travis Voyles, wrote in a September 24 letter to a Park Service official that the agency had said any steps to reduce harm would undercut the administration's vision for the arch. The dispute over the arch, the ballroom and the Kennedy Center illustrates the stakes the trust says it is now facing as it seeks to mobilize a wider preservation movement.
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