While chatting with reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, President Trump showcased the latest plans for his new White House ballroom and said the huge addition would be bulletproof, drone proof and include a “massive” military complex underneath.
“We have all bullet-proof glass, we have drone-proof roofs, ceilings,” the president said. “Unfortunately, we’re living in an age when that’s a good thing.”
Trump characterized the ballroom as more than just a venue for state dinners — it would also serve as a protective shell for a deeper national security operation.
“The ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what’s being built under the military, including from drones and including from any other thing,” Trump said.
And it is good to know that the new building will be heavily fortified.
The information about the military complex currently under construction underneath the planned ballroom, though, was never meant to be public. Trump made clear that the details only surfaced because of legal action.
“It has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed,” he noted.
During a Cabinet meeting on March 26, Trump doubled down, emphasizing the military’s role in pushing for the project.
“I mean, now it’s no secret, the military wanted it more than anybody,” Trump said. “It was supposed to be secret… but it became public because of people that are really unpatriotic saying things — but doesn’t matter. It’s going to be great.”
Legal Bombshell Stops Construction Cold
Just as those revelations were beginning to ripple across Washington, a federal judge stepped in — and brought everything to a halt.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ordered an immediate stop to construction on the ballroom, dealing a major blow to a project the administration has framed as both a historic upgrade and a national security necessity.
Leon ruled that Trump lacks the legal authority to move forward without explicit approval from Congress.
“No statute comes close” to granting the president that authority, the judge wrote.
He added a pointed reminder about the supposed limits of executive power:
“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!”
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which argued the administration bypassed required oversight from Congress and federal planning agencies, including the National Capital Planning Commission.
A Project Years in the Making — Now in Limbo
Trump has long argued that the White House is overdue for an expansion, particularly when it comes to hosting world leaders.
“For 150 years, they’ve wanted to build a ballroom at the White House. Other presidents have wanted it,” Trump said. “When we have dignitaries coming… we have very small rooms. They’re not big enough.”
He has also stressed that the ballroom itself would not burden taxpayers.
“Not one dime of government money” would fund the above-ground structure, he has insisted, pointing instead to private donations and personal contributions.
For now, construction is frozen.
The only path forward is through Congress — an outcome that could ignite a political showdown, especially as more details emerge about the underground development.
News outlets have previously reported that the World War II-era military bunker beneath the East Wing—long used as a presidential command center — is slated for renovation. But Trump’s recent remarks suggest the scope of what’s being built underground goes far beyond a simple upgrade.
I broke down that original bunker, its history, and the newly planned underground expansion in detail back in January. Here’s that piece again.
Major White House Security Upgrade: Trump Rebuilds Command Bunker
The moment news was released about President Trump tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build a grand new state ballroom, I asked myself: “What about the PEOC underneath?”
The Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or the bunker, as some call it, was secretly built as a bomb shelter and underground secure facility for the president and staff right after the attack on Pearl Harbor at the start of WWII.
The East Wing White House extension was built over it, partly as cover for the submarine-like bunker, reportedly 100 feet below ground level. Since it was built, it has evolved from just a bomb shelter into a highly secure and hardened facility with a small living space and secure command center boasting classified, encrypted communications to the outside world — the PEOC.
The complex also reportedly had a secure evacuation route, allowing the president to be taken clandestinely from the White House grounds to another location.
With the dated 1940s-era underground facilities quickly dismantled during the East Wing demolition in October, we may now have some information on what will replace them.
After decades of secrecy, the PEOC was first openly discussed when Vice President Dick Cheney was evacuated there moments before an attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, as officials feared a plane would also hit the White House.
The last time the bunker was widely discussed in the news was in the summer of 2020, when violent BLM rioters in Lafayette Park outside the White House North Gate threatened to overrun the thin line of Park police and Uniformed Secret Service officers arrayed to stop them.
I was there as a security contractor for a foreign TV news crew, and can attest the mob was ugly, attacking police, starting fires, burning cars, and firing industrial incendiary and explosive pyrotechnics at law enforcement. Several dozen officers were injured during the clashes.
I assessed at the time that the mob could swarm the police and breach the older 6-foot-high White House fence and onto the grounds. Note: The new, much-improved, high-tech, hardened 13-foot-high fence surrounding the grounds is a different story.
Either way, after a breach occurs, other than deploying its Belgian Malinois attack dogs and/or firing on the crowd, including using the rooftop snipers, there is little to keep a mob from the mansion itself.
That’s why, at the time, the Secret Service correctly decided to take Trump, First Lady Melania, and First Son Baron into the bunker as a precaution, an emergency move ridiculed by some critics. Trump denied he was directed to go there.
But now we are learning that the hastily demolished East Wing may also have been partly a cover for “top secret” efforts to rebuild the underground bunker. While the ballroom will be paid for by private donors, the bunker underneath will be covered by tax dollars.
During a recent meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission where the ballroom was discussed, White House director of management and administration Joshua Fisher said broadly that the overall ballroom project will “(enhance) mission critical functionality,” “make necessary security enhancements” and “(deliver) resilient, adaptive infrastructure aligned with future mission needs.”
Fisher was pressed on why the project broke with precedent by starting the demolition process without the commission’s approval — and he indicated that the “top-secret” work taking place underground was the motivation.
“There are some things regarding this project that are, frankly, of top-secret nature that we are currently working on. That does not preclude us from changing the above-grade structure, but that work needed to be considered when doing this project, which was not part of the NCPC process,” he said.
When feasible, the PEOC works in direct coordination with the Situation Room in the White House, said Jonathan Wackrow, a former U.S. Secret Service agent.
However, he added: “The Situation Room is a much more focused watch center that will feed information over to the PEOC, but because it is a complex that’s in the West Wing [basement], it is secure to a point, but it’s not a hardened facility.”
Meanwhile, we can only speculate as to the exact form the new secure bunker may take, and the advanced technologies it will incorporate to keep the president safe from nuclear, chemical, biological, and terrorist threats, and able to manage a war if needed.
But I expect it to be bleeding edge and impenetrable.
As CNN noted:
Trump has suggested the US military is “very much involved” in the ballroom construction, and it’s likely that the project is being executed by some combination of military officials; Secret Service; the Executive Office of the President; contractor Clark Construction, which has significant experience in highly secure facility construction; and Shalom Baranes Architects, the group leading the ballroom construction, which also led the project to rebuild and fortify the Pentagon after the 9/11 attack.
In the meantime, while the new bunker is being constructed, reliable sources confirm that the president has several alternate secure sites and redundancies in the event of an emergency. So, Trump will be safe.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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It is a shame that we have gotten to the point where anyone can sue for anything, and with enough time (and / or money) find a judge somewhere to issue the ruling they want. Rulings no no longer have to supported by statute, or legal precedent. A judge’s political leaning should have no bearing on their decision; however, in our modern age it certainly does seem many of them are owned by their political party (or they have been compromised).
And a judge has held up this project ?
How stupid and ignorant is that?
The ballroom is a drastically needed improvement!
And the subterranean part is a much needed improvement, too, for the security of our country’s top executives.
The bias against Trump is showing!