For months, President Donald Trump has touted plans for a new White House ballroom, a 90,000-square-foot behemoth just off the storied East Wing, which traditionally houses the office and staff of the First Lady. This week, images emerged of a full-scale demolition of the East Wing after repeated assurances from Trump and White House officials that the structure would not be touched as part of the construction.

I spoke with Sara Bronin, a professor at George Washington University Law School and the former chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, about whether Trump’s ballroom plans run afoul of preservation law and if any future projects can be halted.

To start, what were your initial reactions to the images we saw this week? 
I think most Americans looked at those images and thought, What on earth is going on here? How is President Trump allowed to do this? For so many, including people around the world, the White House is a symbol of American democracy, of our shared history, a beacon of hope in the world. And to see the images of part of it, even if not the true historic core, being destroyed was pretty shocking.

As president, does Trump have the authority to order a project like this unilaterally?
No. The president has constraints on his ability to simply demolish properties, to demolish part of the White House. Many of the constraints on his power come from a system Congress set up to have a series of advisory bodies opine on proposed changes to the White House. It’s not clear to me that any of those bodies were consulted as required by law, and it’s not clear to me that any process or any set of what you might consider the typical reviews or typical considerations for a wide variety of........

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