WASHINGTON, D.C. — How do you fight a fictional threat? Democrats are learning on the job.
With President Donald Trump now promising to militarize his proposed 250-foot-tall arch — with tools ranging from drones to sniper nests — near Arlington Cemetery, many Democrats on Capitol Hill fear the president’s plot is shaping up to be a severe public safety risk.
“Snipers who shoot people visiting their loved ones in the cemetery?” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told Raw Story. “It made no sense whatsoever, except as perhaps a ploy to justify the arch.”
“What was your reaction when you first heard that Trump wants to militarize his arch?” Raw Story pressed former vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA).
“It was a made-up thing,” Kaine replied.
In Trump’s Washington, fiction parades about as fact, which has local leaders looking for ways to safeguard their constituents from the very commander-in-chief who swore an oath to protect the American people.
Federal lawmakers representing the D.C. region in Congress regularly coordinate security for high-profile events with Pentagon officials, Secret Service agents and undercover federal units tasked with safeguarding the National Mall.
For the past 45 years, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has represented a cluster of suburbs that wrap around Washington, including most of Andrews Air Force Base — home to Air Force One.
Hoyer also served two separate terms as House Majority Leader stretching across three presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and the end of Trump’s first term — where he was afforded a classified seat at the national security table.
That’s why Hoyer’s been rendered dumbfounded these days.
“Have you ever heard from the Pentagon that they need a militarized monument?” Raw Story asked Hoyer.
“Zero, zero. It’s absurd! He lies,” Hoyer replied without hesitation. “It is typical abuse by Trump to pretend that somehow he’s doing for national security what he’s doing for his ego.”
Hoyer’s far from alone.
“How many times has the Pentagon come to you saying, ‘we need snipers above D.C. and in Northern Virginia?’” Raw Story asked Kaine.
“The answer is never,” Kaine told Raw Story. “They’ve never suggested that and still haven’t.”
“They” may not have, but the commander-in-chief is all in.
At the end of August, the Supreme Court handed Trump a big, if temporary, win when the high court’s conservative majority (5-4) ruled construction on the president’s White House ballroom could proceed.
The majority of justices allowed the work to continue, in part, because the president and his taxpayer-funded lawyers claim vital national security measures are being integrated into the new Trumpian East Wing.
Mere weeks after that ruling, Trump unveiled his new vision of an arch outfitted for war.
On social media, Trump tweeted his new plan to turn the arch “into a top-grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”
“He looked at the Supreme Court giving him permission to continue to build the ballroom, and thought, ‘This arch isn’t going anywhere — maybe if I militarized it, the Supreme Court will let me build it,’” Congressman Don Beyer, a former U.S. ambassador, told Raw Story,
“You’re in Northern Virginia, has the Pentagon ever mentioned any need for any of this?” Raw Story inquired.
“No, no,” Beyer replied. “You don’t need to fly drones off the top of the arch, which is already going to be a hazard for incoming planes, and the drones make it impossible. Why would you put an armory there with Fort Myer a mile away at the Pentagon? You’re just inviting people to hit it.”
Other critics agree Trump’s latest national security argument amounts to “a pretty big stretch.”
“It’s also, again, very Trump to try to turn everything into a whole circus like he’s doing,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) told Raw Story. “He’s completely on an island on this one.”
“The Pentagon has never asked for it. They don’t need it. They don’t want it. This is such a joke. He goes abroad and he gets all these ideas from his authoritarian buddies to build all this stuff and name it after him. And we all know that these are just vanity projects, and they’re a waste of money.”
For now, with Democrats locked in the minority, there aren’t many options Trump’s congressional critics have besides the power of the purse — a power Subramanyam and others on the left are vowing to flex.
“I know I’m not going to support any of it,” Subramanyam told Raw Story. “I’m not going to support any funding for it.”
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