Trump uses deadly shooting to push for controversial ballroom in midnight tirade
Hours after a deadly shooting incident outside the White House, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social just after midnight to thank the Secret Service and, in the same post, push for the construction of his controversial White House ballroom.
In a post published shortly after 12 a.m. Eastern, Trump opened with praise for the agents who killed the gunman near the White House gates earlier in the evening. He described the suspect as a man with "a violent history and possible obsession with our Country's most cherished structure."
"Thank you to our great Secret Service and Law Enforcement for the swift and professional action taken this evening against a gunman near the White House," Trump wrote.
The president then pivoted to his ballroom project. Trump argued that the shooting, combined with what he called the "White House Correspondent'Dinner shooting" from a month earlier, demonstrated the need for what he has been describing as a massive new venue on the White House grounds.
"This event is one month removed from the White House Correspondent'Dinner shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C.," Trump wrote, along with the prominent typo.
He closed with a familiar appeal.
"The National Security of our Country demands it!" Trump added.
The ballroom, which Trump has touted as one of his second-term priorities, has drawn criticism from lawmakers and watchdogs who view it as a vanity project and claim that the security justification is stretched well beyond its merits. Trump's overnight post Sunday morning is the latest in a pattern of using public safety incidents and high-profile news events as occasions to argue for the ballroom's necessity.
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