Donald Trump and His Ballroom
The twilight of an American presidency, the revenge of Congress and the changing calculations of Moscow and Kyiv
By Matthew Parish
Saturday 14 November 2026
There is something profoundly revealing about an elderly President of the United States becoming increasingly preoccupied with the construction of a ballroom. Donald Trump, now 80 years old, has spent his political career presenting himself as a man of extraordinary energy, limitless ambition and an almost supernatural capacity to impose his will upon the world. Yet as his second presidency enters its final two years, the image increasingly emerging is not that of a triumphant statesman reshaping the international order, but of an ageing property developer contemplating marble floors, gilded ceilings and the architectural embellishments by which he hopes posterity will remember him.
The ballroom being constructed on the site of the demolished East Wing of the White House is more than an expensive architectural extravagance. It is becoming a metaphor for the declining political authority of a President whose ambitions have repeatedly collided with institutional realities. Following the Republican Party's devastating defeat in the American midterm elections of November 2026, the contrast between Trump's architectural ambitions and his political predicament has become particularly striking. While his political allies contemplate the consequences of losing control of both chambers of Congress, the President continues to pursue the construction of an enormous ceremonial space in which future generations of politicians may hold banquets.
Great political figures frequently develop an obsession with physical monuments as their political powers begin to diminish. The Roman emperors constructed triumphal arches and extravagant palaces, even as the administrative and military foundations of their authority deteriorated. Louis XIV built Versailles as an expression of absolute monarchy, although in his case the project was also an instrument of political control. More recently, authoritarian rulers have displayed a remarkable fondness for monumental architecture, apparently imagining that the grandeur of their buildings might compensate for the fragility of their political achievements.
Trump is not an absolute monarch, notwithstanding his occasional apparent confusion on this point. Nevertheless, the psychological impulse is recognisable. When the world becomes increasingly resistant to one's instructions, there is comfort in supervising a construction project where architects, decorators and contractors may still be expected to listen. A ballroom offers the reassuring possibility of imposing one's aesthetic preferences upon an otherwise uncooperative universe, and it may prove considerably more satisfying than negotiating with the United States Congress.
The revenge of Congress
The American midterm elections of 3 November 2026 have fundamentally transformed the political environment in which Trump must serve the remainder of his presidency. The Democrats have secured control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, depriving the President of the congressional majorities upon which much of his legislative programme depended. The result represents not merely a temporary electoral disappointment but an emphatic rejection of significant elements of his administration's conduct.
The electorate's complaints have included the cost of living, the economic consequences of the war with Iran and widespread concerns about the exercise of executive power. Trump may continue to insist that his political movement enjoys an unprecedented popular mandate, but the constitutional system has supplied a rather different answer. Elections are troublesome occasions for politicians who have become accustomed to believing their own publicity, particularly when the electorate insists upon expressing opinions that diverge from those of the President.
When the new Congress convenes in January 2027, the administration will confront an institutional adversary with substantial constitutional powers. Legislative committees will be able to demand documents, summon witnesses, scrutinise government expenditure and investigate the activities of senior administration officials. The Democrats have already signalled their intention to undertake extensive investigations into immigration enforcement, the conduct of the Department of Justice, possible conflicts of interest, government expenditure and the administration's handling of international military operations.
The consequences are likely to extend far beyond the inconvenience of a succession of uncomfortable congressional hearings. Senior officials will increasingly find themselves allocating their time between governing, consulting lawyers, preparing testimony and defending their professional reputations. Congressional investigators will examine decisions that the administration made when it believed itself politically invulnerable. Government departments may become reluctant to approve controversial initiatives for fear that today's confidential memorandum will become tomorrow's public exhibit before a hostile committee.
An administration previously characterised by aggressive executive action may find itself consumed by the necessity of explaining why it undertook those actions in the first place. The President's senior advisers may become as familiar with congressional hearing rooms as they are with the Oval Office, while the administration's lawyers find themselves confronting a seemingly inexhaustible succession of document requests. Every official who has exercised questionable discretion will have reason to contemplate the possibility that his decisions may eventually be examined under oath.
There is a particular irony in the likely emergence of this atmosphere. Trump has spent much of his political life denouncing investigations into his own activities as politically motivated persecution. Yet the American Constitution deliberately distributes authority between institutions precisely because the Founding Fathers understood that political leaders cannot be trusted to investigate themselves. Congressional oversight may sometimes become partisan or excessive, but its underlying constitutional purpose is to prevent the executive branch from becoming a private instrument of presidential will.
Trump will retain substantial authority, and the President of the United States does not become powerless merely because his party has lost Congress. He can veto legislation, issue executive orders within constitutional and statutory limits and exercise considerable discretion in foreign affairs. Nevertheless, his practical ability to introduce ambitious domestic reforms will be dramatically diminished, while the political costs of controversial executive action will increase.
This is the familiar predicament of the American lame-duck President, although in Trump's case it may prove particularly uncomfortable. His political personality depends upon the appearance of victory, and he has little evident enthusiasm for the patient negotiation and compromise through which divided government sometimes produces effective legislation. One can therefore anticipate an increasingly theatrical presidency, rich in proclamations and confrontations but progressively impoverished in concrete legislative achievements. The President will still dominate the news, but dominating the news and governing the United States are not the same activity.
The architecture of political decline
The ballroom itself has acquired a constitutional significance that would have been difficult to imagine when the project was first announced. The demolition of the East Wing and the construction of its replacement have generated litigation over the President's authority to make such substantial alterations to a building that belongs not to him but to the American people. The federal courts have been required to consider whether the executive branch can undertake such an extensive construction project without congressional authorisation, and the Supreme Court has permitted construction to continue while the legal proceedings remain unresolved.
The dispute captures something fundamental about Trump's conception of political authority. He approaches the White House as a proprietor might approach a hotel, imagining that occupation confers the right to redesign it according to his personal preferences. Yet the President is merely a temporary custodian of the institution, and the physical structure of the White House is an expression of constitutional continuity rather than private ownership.
There is also the question of money, which has become increasingly controversial as the estimated expense of the ballroom has grown. Even where private donations are presented as the principal source of financing, legitimate questions arise concerning the influence of donors, the use of public resources and the propriety of altering a national institution according to the preferences of its temporary occupant. What began as an apparently straightforward exercise in presidential hospitality has therefore become another controversy over executive discretion, public expenditure and the distinction between personal preferences and institutional responsibilities.
Nevertheless, Trump may find increasing solace in such projects. A building does not argue about tariffs, question the wisdom of military operations or demand accountability for the conduct of cabinet officials. A marble column can be ordered to stand where the President wants it, whereas a Democratic senator may prove rather less accommodating. The ballroom may therefore become not simply an exercise in vanity but a refuge from a political world in which the President is progressively losing control of events.
There is an additional psychological dimension to all this. Elderly men who have exercised enormous authority sometimes find it difficult to accept the gradual erosion of their influence, particularly when they have spent their entire adult lives identifying personal achievement with visible expressions of status. The construction of a monumental building offers an illusion of permanence that the normal processes of democratic politics cannot provide. Trump cannot prevent the arrival of January 2029, but he may be able to ensure that a particularly ostentatious ballroom remains standing when he has departed.
The dangerous freedoms of a weakened President
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that a politically weakened Trump must necessarily become an internationally irrelevant one. Indeed the relationship between declining domestic authority and foreign-policy assertiveness may be precisely the opposite. American Presidents frustrated by Congress have frequently turned their attention abroad, where the constitutional powers of the executive remain considerable and where diplomatic achievements may sometimes be secured without the prolonged legislative negotiations required for domestic reform.
Richard Nixon pursued his opening to China and détente with the Soviet Union despite increasing domestic political difficulties. Bill Clinton continued to engage in substantial international diplomacy while his administration was distracted by impeachment proceedings. Barack Obama, faced with Republican congressional opposition, placed increasing emphasis upon executive action and international agreements. In each case, the international arena offered opportunities for presidential initiative that were increasingly difficult to exercise at home.
The temptation is particularly powerful for a President such as Trump, who views international diplomacy primarily through the language of personal relationships and spectacular transactions. If Congress frustrates his domestic agenda, he may seek to demonstrate his continuing greatness by announcing historic agreements with foreign leaders. The prospect of being remembered as a peacemaker, rather than as a President whose administration spent its final years under congressional investigation, may become increasingly attractive.
This creates a paradox. The final two years of Trump's presidency may be characterised simultaneously by diminishing domestic effectiveness and continuing, perhaps even increasing, international unpredictability. A frustrated President with little prospect of securing significant legislative achievements may become particularly susceptible to the attractions of grand diplomatic gestures, especially where they offer the possibility of a dramatic announcement before television cameras.
The American conflict with Iran has already illustrated the enormous consequences of presidential decisions made in the international arena. The conflict has become a significant domestic political liability, contributing to public dissatisfaction with rising prices and America's involvement in further military operations. Yet even a hostile Congress cannot simply assume operational control of American foreign policy, and the President will retain the capacity to make decisions with profound consequences for the international order.
For European governments, therefore, a weakened Trump should not be confused with a harmless Trump. Political frustration may make him more inclined to seek dramatic foreign-policy achievements, even if the resulting arrangements are insufficiently considered or prove difficult to sustain. There are few better illustrations of this problem than the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow's diminishing window of opportunity
For President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump has represented an unusual opportunity in the history of Russian-American relations. Trump has displayed a willingness to question longstanding American commitments to European security, an evident impatience with Ukraine's resistance to Russian aggression and a preference for direct negotiations between powerful leaders rather than the traditional machinery of multilateral diplomacy. From Moscow's perspective, such an American President offers advantages that might not survive the succession of power in Washington.
It is therefore reasonable to expect the Kremlin to consider whether it should accelerate its efforts to secure an acceptable settlement while Trump remains in office. The next American presidential election will take place in November 2028, with the incoming President assuming office in January 2029. Although this gives the Russians more than two years in which to negotiate, the effective political window may be considerably shorter, because Trump's influence will diminish as his prospective successors become more prominent.
The Russian leadership must nevertheless confront an increasingly complicated strategic problem. On the one hand, Trump may be more willing than a future Democratic President to accept Russian control over occupied Ukrainian territory, to discourage Ukraine's integration into Western security institutions or to offer sanctions relief in return for an agreement that he can describe as peace. The prospect of securing concessions through Trump's desire for a diplomatic triumph must be attractive to Moscow, especially if the Russian military is unable to achieve a decisive victory on the battlefield.
On the other hand, Putin may calculate that time remains on Russia's side. If the Russian military can continue to occupy Ukrainian territory and impose substantial costs upon Ukrainian society, the Kremlin might prefer to postpone negotiations in the expectation of extracting more favourable terms later. The Russian leadership has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice extraordinary human and economic resources in pursuit of objectives that it considers fundamental to national power.
There is therefore no certainty that the Russians will rush towards an agreement simply because Trump's presidency is nearing its conclusion. Their calculations will depend upon battlefield developments, economic conditions, European military assistance and the political identities of the people most likely to succeed him. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of succession imposes a cost upon procrastination, because Trump is a known quantity, however erratic his behaviour may be, whereas his successor is not.
The Kremlin must also consider the possibility that Trump's successor might be another Republican sceptical of American commitments to Ukraine. Vice-President JD Vance, for example, has expressed substantially greater reservations about extensive American involvement in the war than many traditional Republican foreign-policy figures. Moscow might therefore conclude that a Vance presidency would offer opportunities comparable to, or even greater than, those associated with Trump.
Yet this would be an uncertain gamble. Vance might never become President, and even a Republican successor might decide that Russian expansionism presents a greater threat to American interests than Trump has generally been prepared to acknowledge. Moreover, an incoming President would not necessarily share Trump's emotional investment in declaring the conclusion of the war to be a personal diplomatic triumph.
If the Kremlin believes that the next American administration may adopt a more consistent policy of military assistance to Ukraine and economic pressure upon Russia, then securing an agreement during Trump's remaining tenure could become an increasingly urgent strategic objective. This would be particularly true if the Russians concluded that the military and economic costs of continuing the war were becoming unsustainable. A settlement negotiated with Trump might then appear preferable to the uncertainties of dealing with an entirely new American administration whose priorities could be substantially different.
Kyiv's strategy of political patience
The Ukrainian government faces a different calculation. For Kyiv, the final two years of Trump's presidency may offer an opportunity to build relationships with an emerging generation of American political leaders while continuing to resist Russian demands for territorial and political concessions. The sweeping Democratic victories in Congress have already changed Ukraine's immediate diplomatic prospects, potentially providing new opportunities for military assistance and political support even while Trump remains in the White House.
Ukraine should not assume that every Democrat will automatically favour indefinite military assistance, or that every Republican will oppose it. American public opinion has become increasingly complicated, and the costs of the war with Iran have intensified debates over the United States' international priorities. Nevertheless, Kyiv now has a wider range of institutional relationships through which to pursue its interests, and a Democratic Congress may prove a substantial counterweight to presidential attempts to pressure Ukraine into an unfavourable settlement.
Congressional committees, senior senators, prospective presidential candidates and influential state governors may all become increasingly important sources of political support. Ukrainian diplomacy will need to become more sophisticated in navigating these relationships, particularly where the emerging foreign-policy positions of potential presidential successors remain uncertain. The approaching presidential election of 2028 will make these relationships still more significant, because the next administration's approach towards Russia and Ukraine is likely to become an increasingly prominent subject of political debate.
Amongst the Republicans, JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio represent potentially different approaches to American foreign policy. Vance has been associated with scepticism about extensive American commitments abroad, while Rubio comes from a more traditional Republican background emphasising American strategic influence and competition with authoritarian powers. Neither should be regarded as having a settled future policy towards Ukraine, but the differences between them may prove important as the Republican Party attempts to establish an identity beyond Trump.
Among the Democrats, figures including Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris and other emerging political leaders represent possible directions for the party's foreign-policy agenda. None is assured of the nomination, and the election remains sufficiently distant for the political landscape to change substantially. Nevertheless, the process of positioning for 2028 has already begun, and Kyiv would be unwise to wait until the nominations are settled before beginning to cultivate relationships with those who may eventually occupy the White House.
For Ukrainian diplomats, the obvious task is to establish relationships with these figures before their positions become fixed by presidential campaign rhetoric. This requires more than expressions of gratitude for past American assistance. Ukraine must demonstrate why its continued independence is consistent with American security interests, why Russian expansionism threatens the wider international order and why European security remains relevant to American prosperity.
The argument must be directed not merely towards sympathy but towards strategic advantage. American politicians are more likely to support Ukraine if they understand that its survival represents a contribution to the containment of Russian military power and the preservation of a stable international order. Ukraine cannot afford to rely indefinitely upon moral appeals, however justified those appeals may be, when competing demands upon American resources are becoming increasingly intense.
There is an important distinction between surviving Trump and preparing for what follows him. The former is a defensive exercise, involving the avoidance of diplomatic disasters and resistance to unacceptable settlements. The latter requires Ukraine to cultivate future sources of political influence before they have acquired executive power. That process is likely to become one of the central objectives of Ukrainian diplomacy over the next two years.
The asymmetry of political time
There is a deeper philosophical problem underlying these calculations. Putin, Trump and Ukraine's political leadership do not experience political time in the same way. Their political systems impose different constraints upon their ambitions, and the meaning of two years varies considerably according to the circumstances of the people concerned.
Putin presides over an authoritarian system in which the orderly transfer of power is neither constitutionally predictable in practice nor subject to meaningful electoral competition. Although the Russian President is himself an elderly man, the system he controls is designed to perpetuate his authority rather than establish a fixed date for his departure. He may therefore imagine that he can outlast Western governments, whose leaders are obliged to submit themselves periodically to the verdict of their electorates.
Trump, by contrast, is constrained by an American constitutional system that imposes an absolute limit upon his remaining elected presidential tenure. The Twenty-second Amendment prevents him from being elected President again, and the ordinary constitutional succession will require him to leave office in January 2029. Whatever he may think about his own political indispensability, the calendar is not open to negotiation, and the American Constitution contains no exemption for Presidents who believe that they are uniquely capable of making their country great.
Ukraine inhabits yet another temporal universe. For Ukrainians living under the constant threat of Russian missile and drone attacks, two years is an extraordinarily long period. It represents thousands of possible civilian casualties, further destruction of homes and infrastructure, continuing military attrition and the psychological exhaustion of a society that has already endured years of invasion.
Yet in the calculations of international diplomacy, two years is also a relatively short period. If Ukraine can maintain its defensive capacity and political stability, it may emerge from Trump's presidency facing a more sympathetic American administration and a European security establishment increasingly committed to reducing its dependence upon Washington. This prospect does not guarantee Ukrainian success, but it changes the calculations underlying the political pressure to accept territorial concessions now.
This does not mean that Ukraine should prolong the war merely in the hope of a favourable American election result. The human costs of such a calculation would be morally intolerable if a genuinely sustainable and just peace were available sooner. Nor is there any guarantee that the next American President will adopt policies more favourable to Kyiv, particularly if American political opinion continues to become more sceptical of extensive international military commitments.
It means instead that Ukrainian negotiators should understand the significance of political time as a strategic resource. A concession made today may prove irreversible, while the political circumstances under which that concession is demanded may be temporary. There is little reason for Ukraine to surrender fundamental national interests merely to satisfy the immediate political ambitions of an American President whose authority is already beginning to diminish.
The succession of empires
American political history offers numerous examples of Presidents whose final years were overshadowed by the approaching succession of power. Dwight Eisenhower became increasingly concerned about the direction of American military power and the growth of the military-industrial complex. Lyndon Johnson abandoned his attempt to secure re-election as the Vietnam War undermined his administration, while Richard Nixon's presidency disintegrated under the pressure of congressional investigations and the Watergate scandal.
Trump's circumstances are not identical to any of these examples. His continuing personal influence over the Republican Party is substantial, and his supporters have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to overlook political controversies that would have destroyed the careers of more conventional politicians. Nevertheless, his approaching departure is now an unavoidable fact of American political life, and the Republican Party must eventually decide whether Trumpism can survive without Trump.
This will be an uncomfortable process. Trump has dominated Republican politics for more than a decade, leaving relatively little room for independent personalities capable of challenging his authority. The party's defeat in the midterm elections is likely to intensify disagreements between those who believe that the movement must become more moderate and those who consider that the solution is an even more uncompromising commitment to Trump's methods.
There is also the question of whether Trumpism represents a coherent political philosophy or merely an expression of one man's temperament. Its principal features have included economic nationalism, hostility towards established international institutions, suspicion of immigration, an aggressive approach to executive power and a personalisation of political authority that sits uneasily with traditional American constitutional conservatism. Yet these positions do not necessarily form a consistent programme of government, and Trump's successors may discover that sustaining his political coalition is considerably more difficult than imitating his rhetoric.
Meanwhile, foreign governments will adjust their behaviour accordingly. They will continue to deal with Trump because he remains President, but they will increasingly devote attention to the figures who may replace him. Diplomatic relationships are not governed by sentiment, and governments are principally interested in those who possess the capacity to deliver future decisions.
The curious consequence may be that Trump continues to receive the elaborate ceremonial respect accorded to an American President even as his practical influence gradually declines. Foreign leaders may praise his wisdom and negotiating skills while privately developing relationships with his likely successors. This would hardly be unprecedented, because the courts of declining monarchs have always been populated by individuals who bow deeply before the sovereign while discreetly arranging their affairs with the heir.
The ballroom at the end of history
There is a distinctly tragicomic quality to the prospect of Trump's final years in office. Here is a man who has spent much of his life seeking ever greater recognition and whose extraordinary political career has twice carried him to the presidency of the world's most powerful country. Yet having secured that position for a second time, he may discover that the final chapter of his public life consists increasingly of frustrating encounters with congressional investigators, disputes with hostile legislators and the supervision of architectural projects intended to preserve his name.
The tragedy, to the extent that there is one, is not merely personal. It concerns the enormous disparity between the responsibilities of the American presidency and the limited time available to any individual to discharge them. Every President must eventually confront the distinction between the extraordinary powers temporarily entrusted to him and the permanent institutions of the republic that he is supposed to serve.
The President of the United States possesses powers capable of influencing the fate of nations. Decisions taken in Washington determine whether Ukrainian soldiers receive essential weapons, whether Russian aggression is deterred or rewarded and whether the international legal order retains sufficient credibility to restrain future wars. Against these responsibilities, the selection of marble for a ballroom seems an almost comically inadequate occupation, particularly when the consequences of strategic miscalculation may be measured in thousands of human lives.
Yet vanity projects are often the final refuge of political figures confronting the uncomfortable realities of their own mortality and declining authority. Physical monuments offer the illusion of permanence, whereas governments fall, political parties change their leaders and diplomatic agreements are repudiated. A great building appears to stand beyond the reach of these uncertainties, promising that the personality of its patron will survive long after his political power has evaporated.
Trump may imagine that future generations will associate his presidency with the grandeur of the ballroom he has commissioned. They may indeed remember it, although perhaps not in precisely the manner he intends. The ballroom may become a monument not to American greatness but to the peculiar priorities of a President who devoted extraordinary attention to ornamenting the White House while the international order underwent profound upheaval.
There is, however, one final irony. The American constitutional system, which Trump has so often treated as an obstacle to his personal ambitions, may ultimately prove more durable than the decorative architecture through which he seeks to leave his mark. Congress will investigate, presidential candidates will compete, the electorate will choose another leader and the machinery of constitutional succession will continue. The political system may experience considerable turmoil in the process, but its capacity to replace its leaders remains one of the fundamental differences between American democracy and the authoritarian political order that Putin has constructed in Russia.
For Russia and Ukraine, the important question is what consequences Trump's remaining period in power will have for the war. Moscow may see an increasingly narrow opportunity to secure favourable terms from a President impatient for a diplomatic achievement. Kyiv may see an opportunity to endure a difficult period while cultivating relationships with the men and women who will eventually exercise American power. Both governments will be studying the approaching succession with considerable care, recognising that their strategic interests may depend upon political developments thousands of kilometres away.
Meanwhile, in Washington, an ageing President may continue contemplating chandeliers, Corinthian columns and the perfect shade of gold leaf. Beyond the windows of his unfinished ballroom, the institutions of American government will be preparing for the world that follows him. The officials who currently surround him will be contemplating their future careers, congressional investigators will be preparing their questions and prospective presidential candidates will be calculating their opportunities.
History, being indifferent to the aesthetic preferences of departing Presidents, will continue its relentless progress towards January 2029. Trump may spend his final months in office admiring the magnificent building that he has created, surrounded by gold, marble and the reassuring symbols of his own supposed greatness. Yet the world outside will already have begun to move beyond him, as political power inevitably transfers to those who must confront the consequences of his decisions.
The ballroom may be finished by then, and its chandeliers may shine magnificently upon the assembled guests of a new administration. The consequences of Trump's presidency, however, will remain unfinished business for the United States, for Europe and above all for Ukraine, whose future may be influenced for generations by the choices made during the final years of an American President increasingly preoccupied with building a monument to himself.
