President Donald Trump quietly confirmed the possibility of a nightmare scenario conjured up by critics of his massive White House ballroom.
The 80-year-old president gave a personal tour of the construction site where the East Wing once stood to New York Magazine reporter Ben Terris, and he touched on some of the political concerns about the legally contested ballroom.
“I think the people should be for it,” Trump said when asked about those concerns. “A lot of people said, ‘Don’t do this interview.’ But I’m proud of the work I’m doing.”
He walked the reporter through the site, pointing out a pathway leading to the White House residence that had once been asphalt but now was going to be square-cut granite tiles.
“Look at the thickness of it,” Trump said. “Normally, you use one inch, as thin as you can. It’s the White House — I said, ‘F— it, what’s the best you have?’ They said, ‘We have one that’s four inches.’”
Trump and his legal team have responded to legal efforts to slow construction on the project by arguing it was necessary for national security, and he said top generals immediately arranged a meeting when they caught wind of his plans.
“They said, ‘Sir, we’d like to build things, it would be a dream, but there’s never been anything like this proposed,’” Trump told Terris. “‘If we could build underground, we could go down five stories.’”
Trump’s boasts about the project’s rooftop drone port, bulletproof windows and underground military wing secure from nuclear blasts prompted Terris to ask whether the White House currently had a bunker where he could go in case of emergency.
“Not much of a place,” he says. “You can’t do much under a building that’s a little on the fragile side. You can put a little room, but you can’t put much under the White House. Nothing like this.”
Terris asked him directly about fears that have been floated that he might just hole up inside his new bunker after the 2028 election and remain in the White House.
“I haven’t heard that one,” Trump told the reporter with a laugh. “But I tell you what, it would be awfully tough to get you out. Nobody would be able to get you out.”
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