SEATTLE – There are few things Donald Trump enjoys more than talking about his in-the-works White House ballroom.
He boasts of its attributes during meetings with foreign leaders, brags to the media it will be “the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world” and finds time during supposedly sombre ceremonies to honour fallen soldiers to say how “beautiful” it will be.
It was no surprise then, that in the aftermath of the apprehension of an armed would-be assailant trying to storm his way into the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where Trump and half his cabinet were seated, he would not just again focus on the topic, but use the episode to further make his case about necessity of the 1,000-seater, $400m project that involves demolishing parts of the East Room.
“I didn’t want to say this but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House. It’s actually a larger room, and it’s much more secure,” Trump told reporters, many of whom were still dressed in ballrooms or dinner jackets, having hurried from the dinner at the Hilton Hotel moments earlier.
“It’s drone proof. It’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. That’s why the Secret Service, that’s why the military, are demanding it.”
Polls suggest a majority of Americans oppose building the 90,000 square foot ballroom with its own bunker which is being paid for by corporate donors including Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta among others. Many feel the facility, work on which has been temporarily halted by a judge, is something that will not improve their own lives.
But just as the President is likely to see a boost to his standings as a result of Saturday night’s incident – just as he did when he was grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 – it would be no surprise if opposition to the ballroom now starts to fade away.
Trump is certain to go on the attack and use this to his advantage any time a judge, an historical commission or anyone else says anything he dislikes.
With the midterm elections just months away, no member of the Democratic Party will wish to stick their head out and be accused of being unpatriotic.
On Sunday, Trump said on Truth Social: “What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE”.
He said while it was “beautiful, it has every highest level security feature there is”.
He added, “Nothing should be allowed to interfere with its construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule.”
There was evidence that at least some Democrats were agreeing with him.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who sometimes breaks with his party on issues, said people needed to drop their so-called “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, or TDS.
“We were there front and centre,” he said on X. “That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the US government. After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these.”
Some will feel that an important point is getting lost among the focus on the ballroom.
The President has spent years attacking the media as “scum” or “fake news” and singling out individual female reporters as “ugly”, “stupid,” and “piggy”.
On Saturday night, he presented himself as a defender of free speech, insisting the dinner be rescheduled for a month from now, even though it was reported that in the speech he never got to make as the dinner was cut short, he planned to again attack at least some outlets that have earned his ire.
The White House Correspondents Association has been holding its annual dinner at that hotel for a long time and the event has always been a somewhat awkward, downed-tools coming together of journalists and the government it is tasked with covering, a task some organisations manage to do less fawningly than others.
If Trump or a future president insists that, from now on, using the security card, the media dinner is held at the ballroom, scheduled for completion in the summer of 2028, it might be an offer hard to resist.
It is also the case that a guest comedian or MC would probably feel less comfortable poking fun at the president in such a setting.
That would be a bad thing, and a break with a tradition in which the media has sought to show its independence.
Trump clearly doesn’t care about that. He only cares about his ballroom.
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