GoKawiilPresident Donald Trump is squeezing Republicans to do his bidding on the ballroom.
White House officials are pushing Republicans in Congress to approve $1 billion in security enhancements for Trump’s ballroom on grounds that it would be bad optics for private donors to pay for the presidential bunker underneath, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The White House has said the ballroom itself has been paid for by donors like tech giants Apple, Meta, and Amazon, but there has been concern about these companies or rich donors effectively sponsoring a bunker.
The proposed security measures for the East Wing broadly fall into two buckets, the people say: the below-ground bunker and above-ground elements that plan to include bulletproof glass and a roof that hides a counteroffensive drone port and rocket launchers.
The bunker is under construction for now with money Congress appropriated last year for White House security, the people say, but that funding from last year is not expected to cover all of the proposed security measures that Trump wants for the construction.
If the $1 billion is not approved, Trump’s aides have warned lawmakers there may have to be cutbacks to the proposed security measures at a time that Trump has faced repeated attempts on his life, according to a Republican leadership source.
The White House does need security upgrades. For instance, while Congress installed hardened windows after the January 6 Capitol riot, the shoot-out between a gunman and secret service agents in front of the White House over the weekend revived concerns that part of the West Wing wasn’t appropriately secure.
Still, in conversations with WIRED, lawmakers have privately grumbled that the reason the White House is now in need of money for a bunker is because Trump ripped out the existing one when he bulldozed the East Wing last year without first securing funding from Congress.
As a result, the White House has now off-loaded the bunker problem of Trump’s own making onto Congress.
Trump’s aides privately acknowledge that Republicans are in a tough spot because the idea of giving the president $1 billion for a construction project while the Iran war continues and gas prices remain high remains politically toxic.
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