On a warm, sunny Tuesday in May, President Donald Trump invited White House reporters to tour the work site of the crown jewel in his one-man effort to transform the nation’s capital to fit his vision of architectural beauty. Known in planning documents as the White House State Ballroom. But in donor pledge agreements, as “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House.”
Speaking over a cacophony of construction workers and their heavy machinery, Trump extolled the virtues of the proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom. Which, he said, with its neoclassical Greco-Roman design, will be “one of the most beautiful buildings that’s ever been built in the country.”
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Trump insists that not a dime of taxpayer money has been spent on the ballroom, that he and donors have covered the $400 million price tag: “It’s a gift from me, and from great patriots. … It’s going to cost the country nothing.”
Though known for what back in his New York developer days called “truthful hyperbole,” Trump is not exaggerating when he boasts that “there will never be anything like this built again.”
Billed as a ballroom, the ornate structure is designed to be a bomb shelter with a heavy-duty steel roof Trump claims is “drone-proof,” (“If a drone hits it, it bounces off”), steel walls and missile-roof columns, (“The side walls are steel, impenetrable steel”) reinforced concrete floors, (“Look at the amount of rebar … It’s very powerful concrete. It’s 9,000-pound concrete”) and bullet-and-blast proof windows, (“The glass is approximately four inches thick, and yet, it’s amazing. You can see through it as though it didn’t exist”).
When Trump first announced plans for the ballroom, he said the impetus was the need for a bigger entertainment venue for state dinners and to dispense with the practice of hosting events outside under tents on the White House lawn.
“The water goes over everybody’s shoes … and they’ve had a lot of catastrophes with the tent,” Trump said. “Presidents have been asking for this literally from the time the White House has been built.”
Security bunker argument
After a federal judge barred construction of the above-ground ballroom but allowed below-ground construction to continue for national security reasons, Trump and his Department of Justice shifted their arguments to emphasize that the ballroom is an integral part of the new underground bunker. One that is replacing the World War II-era bomb shelter that was demolished along with the rest of the East Wing last year.
Trump now touts the ballroom as a highly fortified military bastion. That will serve as the last line of defense for Washington, D.C., complete with sniper ports and a drone port on the roof, which are depicted in AI-generated images posted on Truth Social.
“But the entire roof is developed for military. They’re very high. They’re higher than just about anything else. They have a 360-degree vision of Washington, D.C. They have a massive drone capacity,” Trump said, adding in a Truth Social post, “With the advent of highly sophisticated, and powerful, modern-day weaponry, we can no longer defend Washington, D.C., with rifles and pistols, alone.”
“The DronePort at the White House Ballroom will be, perhaps, the most sophisticated anywhere in the World! It will safeguard our Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C., long into the future.”
But the ballroom, for all its bells and whistles, is just the icing on a multilayer cake that lies beneath it and descends six stories underground.
In March, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump referred to the ballroom as a “shed” over the massive military facility that’s being built underneath.
More recently, he’s called the ballroom a “shield” for what he describes as a massive military complex. Details of which were supposed to remain top secret but were revealed as a result of what Trump complains is a “stupid lawsuit,” filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“They couldn’t build the lower floors without that shield over the top of it. It’s a shield that will totally protect what’s downstairs,” Trump explained to reporters. “They have a lot of things going on downstairs, and some of it you see. This goes down six stories … They’re building a military hospital. They’re building all sorts of research facilities, also meeting rooms, and rooms that go hand-in-hand for the military using the ballroom.”
In their court filings, the Justice Department lawyers argued the “above-ground ballroom is necessary to accommodate and effectuate the below-ground additions,” including by “providing adequate, reinforced cover.”
“The security features of the ballroom itself … also carry design consequences and are also necessary to protect the safety of the president, his family, his staff, and his home.”
Hence, the $1 billion request to Congress to pay, not for the ballroom, but for the subterranean Doomsday fortress that it sits atop.
Congress, which, like the public, was told the ballroom would be built with private funds, including from Trump’s own pocket, was blindsided.
“There’s no architectural plans. There is no environmentals. There’s no engineering. There’s no sense of — when we ask, how did it happen to cost exactly a billion?,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). “In my mind, that is, it could cost a lot less. It could cost a lot more. I just don’t get it.”
Bipartisan concerns
The elaborate plans and the fact that taxpayers would be footing roughly two-thirds of the bill were not disclosed until Trump requested that the money be included in a reconciliation funding bill that can be passed by a simple Senate majority, if Republicans are united.
“No, of course it doesn’t belong in there,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA).
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) said, “Half the country’s living paycheck-to-paycheck. We shouldn’t be talking about ballrooms.”
In his March 31 ruling granting a preliminary injunction barring any above-ground construction, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rejected Trump’s claim that existing statutes give him the authority to construct his East Wing ballroom project with private funds.
“No statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have,” Leon wrote. “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!”
Judge Leon’s ruling has been stayed pending a hearing of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set for this month, so for the moment, construction is proceeding apace.
Trump is banking on the fact that the construction has already progressed into building some above-ground structures, such as the massive pillars, so that it will be too late to modify the design as a practical matter.
And Trump seems to sincerely believe that even the naysayers, once they see the completed ballroom/bunker, will come to agree it’s a monumental addition to the White House.
“This is really for other presidents. This is not for me. This is my gift to the United States of America,” Trump says, noting the ballroom is projected to be completed by mid-2028; he hopes to hold the 2029 presidential inauguration there.
“The funny thing is that from the standpoint of usage, other presidents will have it for 200 years. I’ll have it for about six months,” Trump told his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as he gave the Fox News host a tour in April.
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“It’ll be used for hopefully hundreds of years for other presidents, and there will never be anything like this built again,” Trump said.
Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) is the Washington Examiner‘s senior writer on national security.
