What the Trump ballroom fight reveals about the White House bunker: NPR

President Trump’s dream of a White House ballroom has exposed what was once a relative secret: the construction of a military bunker beneath the now-demolished East Wing.

The administration began demolishing the East Wing in October to make way for Trump’s long-desired White House ballroom, a project that will cost at least $300 million. the plan is ready rejection That drew anger from members of the public and architectural and preservation groups, one of whom filed a lawsuit in December to stop it.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Lyons sided with the National Trust for Historic Preservation this week when he ruled that construction of the ballroom “must stop until Congress permits its completion.”

Nevertheless, as the White House appeals the decision, Lyon is allowing construction to continue for the “safety and security of the White House” – agreeing with the administration’s argument that the renovation is about more than aesthetics.

This has been supported in court filings regarding the case, as well as in Trump’s own public comments.

A snapshot of construction in February, after the east wing was demolished to make room for the ballroom.

Jose Luis Magaña/AP

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Jose Luis Magaña/AP

“The Army is building a huge complex underneath the ballroom, which came about because of a stupid lawsuit that was recently filed,” Trump said. told reporters On Air Force One on the weekends.

He said that the proposed 90,000 square feet The ballroom “essentially becomes a shed for what’s being built below,” adding that “high-grade bulletproof glass” windows will keep the facility below safe from “drones and … anything else.”

The existence of the World War II-era facility – called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) – has been an open secret for decades, especially after the government Photos released in 2015 White House officials were sheltering inside on September 11, 2001.

But little is known about the current condition of the bunker. CNN reported in January It was destroyed during renovation, or what type of structure may have come in its place. When? asked on monday White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt remained tight-lipped about sharing more details about the underground complex.

“The Army is making some upgrades to its facilities here at the White House, and I don’t know of any more details about that at this time,” he said.

Trump was more forthcoming with journalists That same day, he signed executive orders in the Oval Office, reiterating that the judge’s decision allows him “to continue construction as needed to cover the security of the White House and its grounds.”

Trump read a handwritten note listing the permitted upgrades.

“The roof is droneproof. We have secure air-handling systems,” Trump said. “We have bio-defense everywhere. We have secure telecommunications and communications everywhere. We have bomb shelters that we’re building. We have a hospital and very large medical facilities that we’re building… so on that we’re OK.”

For decades, little was known about the FDR-era bunker

The White House built an East Wing with an underground bomb shelter for President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, out of concern that the building might become an air raid target.

The White House Historical Association said, “This secret space features thick concrete walls and a steel roof with a small presidential bedroom and bathroom inside.” wrote on social media In 2024. “Ventilation masks, food storage and communication equipment were provided in adjacent rooms.”

It has been upgraded in the decades that have followed. On the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, several White House officials under George W. Bush – who were in Florida at the time – took refuge there.

Former First Lady Laura Bush recalls her experience 2010 memoirIn which she wrote about being “pushed down through a pair of large steel doors, which closed behind me with a loud hiss, creating an airtight seal.”

President George W. Bush talks with Vice President Dick Cheney at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on September 11, 2001.

Eric Draper/The White House/Associated Press

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Eric Draper/The White House/Associated Press

“I was now headed to the PEOC in one of the unfinished underground hallways beneath the White House,” she wrote. “We walked on old tile floors with pipes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of mechanical equipment. The PEOC is designed as a command center during emergencies with television, phone and communications facilities.”

Key administration officials were also there, including Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, sitting at a long conference table in a small room. The government released hundreds of photos from that day in response to a Freedom of Information Act request in 2015 – showing officials talking on landline phones and video conferencing on big screens.

Bush wrote that the Secret Service suggested the couple spend the night in the bunker: “They showed us the bed, a foldout that looked like it had been installed when FDR was president… We both said no.”

A decade later, when Barack Obama was president, the White House began a major, multi-year renovation project that included digging a giant hole beneath the Oval Office, revealing what appeared to be a tunnel below. The General Services Administration (GSA) denied it was bunker related and described it as a standard repair of air conditioning and electrical systems.

An excavation project near the West Wing, pictured in January 2011, looked to many like a bunker occupation.

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Charles Dharpak/AP

“However, what reporters and photographers saw during construction appeared to go far beyond that: a massive, multi-story structure requiring truckloads of heavy-duty concrete and steel beams for underground assembly,” associated Press Wrote at the end of the project in 2012.

It said the White House had tried to keep that work hidden by erecting a fence around the excavation site and “ordering subcontractors not to talk to anyone and taping company information on trucks that came into the White House gate.”

Many people did not like the official explanation of what some media outlets called “the White House Big Dig.”

a 2011 new York Times report Citing unnamed administration officials, it was speculated that the effort was actually “security-related”. The article states that people did not take the GSA’s story at face value, “despite the size of the hole, the controlled silence of construction workers, and the fact that the money was allocated after September 11, 2001.” a 2011 Washington Post Piece To put it more clearly: “It’s a bunker, right?”

Questions about the bunker resurfaced during Trump’s first term. new York Times And cnn It was reported that during a night of Black Lives Matter protests outside the White House in May 2020, the Secret Service had taken him inside and kept him there for a while. Trump later confirmed that he had spent time in the PEOC, but denied that he was taken inside – telling Fox News that he went inside briefly during the day “for observation.”

What we know about new construction

Still, the existence of a bunker — and plans to build a new one — weren’t necessarily uppermost in people’s minds when Trump began demolishing the East Wing last fall.

Critics were quick to highlight the lack of public input and congressional authorization, the sheer scale of the proposed ballroom, and concerns about environmental impact and historic preservation.

In January, as the legal battle began, Trump wrote Truth Social stated, without elaborating, that the project was being undertaken with “design, consent, and approval at the highest levels of the United States military and secret service.”

“Unfortunately, simply bringing this ridiculous lawsuit has exposed this top secret fact,” Trump wrote.

The National Capital Planning Commission voted Thursday to approve Trump’s ballroom plan, days after a federal judge ordered construction halted without Congress’s permission.

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Al Drago/Getty Images

In court filings reviewed by NPR, the Secret Service confirmed its involvement but kept details to a minimum.

In a signed announcement, Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn wrote that his agency was working with the contractor on “temporary safety and security measures around the project’s construction site,” which was not fully completed at the time.

“Accordingly, any interruption in construction, even temporarily, would leave the contractor’s obligations in this regard unfulfilled and would result in hindering the Secret Service’s ability to carry out its statutory obligations and protective mission,” Quinn wrote, before offering to brief the judge in private on more details, “including law enforcement sensitive and/or classified information.”

In a separate filing, Trump administration officials sought to present further details in a classified setting so as to keep “discussion of national security concerns” off the publicly available docket.

Trump aides have been similarly vague in other public settings, including at a National Capital Planning Commission meeting in January, where White House Director of Management and Administration Josh Fischer said: “There are some things with respect to this project that are, frankly, of a top-secret nature that we are currently working on.”

After a period seeking public comments, the commission, a government agency that meets monthly to provide planning guidance for D.C.’s federal lands and buildings, held its approval vote. a revised version This week about Trump’s ballroom plan. It gave it the green light, despite a judge’s order just a few days earlier.