Will Oliver / EPA
Donald Trump pays homage to soldier
“Unfortunately, we are living in a time when this is a good thing,” announced Donald Trump. What was secret is no longer secret.
When, in September last year, there was still talk of the (then) recent murder of his friend, Donald Trump quickly changed the subject.
“How have you been holding up, Mr. President?” asked the journalists. “Very well. And by the way, do you see all the trucks? They’ve just started building the new one for the White House. This has been talked about for over 150 years. It’s going to be a spectacle. Absolutely magnificent.”
Trump ordered the East Wing of White House, still in 2025, for the construction of a ballroom that is expected to cost almost 350 million euros.
It will be used for state dinners, galas and other events featuring leaders from other countries. According to the White House, the project is being financed by private donations.
The measure is being controversy from the beginning. The US president was meanwhile processed by a historic preservation organization, the National Fund for Historic Preservation, which wants to stop the construction of the space because, it claims, it is an illegal and unconstitutional work.
This Sunday, Trump called this “stupid” process.
But he announced something else: the US military is “building a huge complex” underneath this new ballroom of the White House.
Donald Trump described the complex in a conversation with journalists aboard Air Force One: “We have bulletproof glass throughout the structure, drone-proof roofs and ceilings.”
“Unfortunately, we are living in a time when this is a good thing”, said the US president.
Last week, Trump said there was a national security component to the construction of the ballroom that “should be secret.”
It stopped being something secret: “It was supposed to be a secret, but it stopped being a secret because of some really unpatriotic people who started talking.”
