Trump’s Vulnerability and the Bunker-Ballroom

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I have long suspected that one reason Stephen Miller has so much control over Donald Trump right now is he played a big part of getting Trump back on his feet after the Butler shooting, which really (and unsurprisingly) rattled him for weeks. Trump’s return coincided with a particular turn to the fascist.

That’s one reason I find this exchange from NYT’s “interview” with Donald Trump interesting.

He directly tied the security of the bunker-ballroom to some trauma (he had earlier raised it, and sent a valet to get all his ballroom models).  Then they spoke off the record (one of perhaps four times they do so, aside from the call with Colombian President Gustavo Petro).

President Trump

This is a much more important thing to do. So, this is the ballroom right here. It’s beautiful. People love it. It’ll hold — it’s being designed with bulletproof glass, 4 to 5 inches thick. Can take just about any weapon that we know of. I wish I was in it about a little while ago. [Mr. Trump laughs.]

[Mr. Trump speaks briefly off the record.]

Tyler Pager

Mr. President, on the record, you haven’t even been here a year yet, and you’ve made many renovations. Are there other plans for you to make changes?

They came back on the record with a slightly different topic: renovations generally.

From there, Trump discussed a plan to add a second floor to the West Wing, because the roof that’s there now is not used given that long range rifles could hit them.

Tyler Pager

What about at the White House complex?

President Trump

I may do an upper West Wing. This area. Cover it with one floor because it needs more space. It would be —

David E. Sanger

Including the Oval? Or Oval would be separate?

President Trump

No, less. Short of the Oval. If you take the L [shape] —

David E. Sanger

So you’d put it up — there’s a second floor. It’s sort of in the attic.

President Trump

Well there’s a second floor now that was, that was meant to be a park. People don’t use it as a park. Now with long-range rifles, you tend not to use it.

[snip]

Katie Rogers

The L. Is that why you were on the roof that day?

President Trump

Exactly.

Katie Rogers

What were you doing?

President Trump

I was looking at doing office space.

Grandpa Sundown took a diversion to show a picture of Don Jr holding a rattlesnake while wearing flip-flops.

Then Trump brought out one after another model of the ballroom. When David Sanger asked him about its cost, he distinguished between the aboveground portion — the ballroom — from the stuff below ground (which has not been discussed on the record) — the bunker.

The current $400 million cost does not include the bunker.

President Trump

But I said, “Ultimately, they win.” You better be careful. So ready? Don’t take any pictures of this ’cause you’ll scare people. So I started off with a building half of the seats —

[Mr. Trump puts a model for a new White House ballroom on the table.]

— and then it just kept growing and growing, and the money kept pouring in and pouring in. No, no, please. So I started with that — started with this.

[Mr. Trump puts a model of what he said was the smaller, original planned ballroom on the table.]

And I said: “Wow, I’ve got all this beautiful land. I don’t want to waste it.” So I said: “All right. I’ll go a little bit larger.” This would have seat — seated 450 people. So I said, “Let’s go a little bit larger.” So then I said, “Let’s do this.”

[Mr. Trump removes the smaller model and puts another model for the new ballroom on the table.]

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

What’s the updated price tag on all this?

President Trump

Well, every time I make it larger it goes — but I’ll do it for — I’m under budget and ahead of schedule. You know, I’m — I’d build it larger.

David E. Sanger

Are you at about $400 million now?

President Trump

I’ll bring it in for less than — it’s, it’s ahead of schedule and under budget so far.

David E. Sanger

What’s the budget?

President Trump

Under $400 million.

David E. Sanger

And that’s just the aboveground, not —

President Trump

That’s the aboveground.

According to CNN a White House official acknowledged the security enhancements going on underground.

During a recent meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission where the ballroom was discussed, White House director of management and administration Joshua Fisher said broadly that the overall ballroom project will “(enhance) mission critical functionality,” “make necessary security enhancements” and “(deliver) resilient, adaptive infrastructure aligned with future mission needs.”

Fisher was pressed on why the project broke with precedent by starting the demolition process without the commission’s approval — and he indicated that the “top-secret” work taking place underground was the motivation.

“There are some things regarding this project that are, frankly, of top-secret nature that we are currently working on. That does not preclude us from changing the above-grade structure, but that work needed to be considered when doing this project, which was not part of the NCPC process,” he said.

And to the NYT, Donald Trump tied the bunker-ballroom to his own sense of vulnerability.

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55 replies
    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Virtually everything about the White House is secret or top-secret, so Joshua Fisher’s excuse is not very persuasive. Neither is his, “We tore down the structure above ground so we could tear out the much larger structure below ground, but without telling you that’s what we were doing” shtick.

  2. montysep says:

    It’ll be a more luxurious bunker hideaway to have available if he successfully pulls off a coup to remain for a third (or indefinite) Presidential term.

  3. Savage Librarian says:

    Those bulletproof windows in the ballroom are also arched. And by its nature, I’m assuming the bunker won’t have windows. But as long as Trump is there, there will always be an Archie Bunker.

  4. Alan Charbonneau says:

    He won’t stave off death that way, but he will try. He’s afraid of dying and is reinforcing his bunker to keep Mr. Death away just as Sarah Winchester added rooms to her house to appease the spirits of those killed by rifles. Donny doesn’t realize the killer is not only inside the house, it’s inside his own body.

    • Nord Dakota says:

      I keep thinking of the Amber Room with the designs he held up.
      Plus a crystal tomb with his body preserved like Lenin’s?

      • Uncle Reggie says:

        I imagine that he will press for some sort of mausoleum as his final resting place, for he knows if he is out in the open, his grave will suffer the same fate as Jacob Marley’s grave as shown in FX’s most recent iteration of ‘A Christmas Carol’ – only with many, many more streams.

  5. depressed chris says:

    Goodbye Eric, me gotta go, me oh, my oh
    Me gotta go destroy the world down the cellar
    My Ivanka, the sweetest one, me oh, my oh
    Son of a gun we’ll have big fun in the bunker

    “Jambalaya” — Hank Williams

  6. zscoreUSA says:

    There is more talk of the bunker project as a mega data center, which would presumably operate without Congressional oversight.

    Seth Abramson has mentioned it December 29: https://xcancel.com/i/status/2005874261735403641

    The first person I have seen argue this point is The Drey Dossier from mid-December:
    http://web.archive.org/web/20251215185806/https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/trump-isnt-building-a-ballroom

    Here’s Trump being impressed by Mark Zuckerberg showing him a “Manhattan sized AI data center.”

    https://fortune.com/2026/01/21/trump-says-mark-zuckerberg-showed-him-a-manhattan-sized-ai-data-center/

    • Pat Researches says:

      It also brings to mind Peter Wright’s book “Spycatcher,” where supposedly having a Russian mole at the top levels results in the new British intelligence facilities being heavily wire-tapped.

  7. Eichhörnchen says:

    What kind of “top secret” building project can be revealed to contractors but not Congress? Is it because they can’t force Congresspeople to sign NDAs?

    BTW: What’s the over-under on the proportion of gilding involved?

    • P J Evans says:

      They don’t have any firm plans yet, because the companies know they’d have to reveal them in order to get the required permits, and The Felon Guy can’t remember anything for more than two minutes running.

    • Greg Hunter says:

      The more I think about the Founders ensuring that our mail delivery was performed by the government, the more convinced I am that all electronic mail and media transmission should have gone that way as well. We would have far more rights and oversight if this idea had taken hold.

      • Gil Bagnell says:

        A great observation. Just like roads. Also just like paper money. (And should be like debit cards.) Once something becomes universal, it should be a government function. We used to have circulating money that did not lose value. Now, every plastic transaction takes 2-3% out of a merchant’s pocket.

  8. Mike Stone says:

    It would be good if we can just skip to end on April 30 inside the Führerbunker wherein Trump is visibly deteriorated in health and demeanor, had accepted that defeat was inevitable.

    Steven Miller can then take the bodies out into the rose garden, pour gasoline over them and strike a match.

  9. Zinsky123 says:

    Rumor has it that Donald measured his male member every night before bed to see if any of the enlargement techniques he employed were working, according to Ivana, his first wife. So, yeah, he has always been obsessed with size.

  10. rosalind says:

    OT: Jack Smith testifying publicly today, hearing starting now (7am PST/10am EST) on C-Span 2, and Youtube.

      • Chetnolian says:

        Boring stuff guys. Much more interesting is that Trump, speaking to some of the the most important people in the World, managed to say “Iceland” more than once when he meant “Greenland”.

        I seem to recall a similar error was regarded, not without cause, especially by Republicans as evidence Biden was losing it. Same thing surely?
        Unless he plans to come back and claim Iceland next week just for a bonus.

        • misnomer bjet says:

          That was a tell.

          It was reported that Trump was white faced and shaken when he came out of his foreshortened meeting with Putin in Anchorage.

          At the very least, he’s been made well-enough aware of Iceland’s cache with the AI & crypto bros for that to be part of why he keeps saying Iceland.

          Consider those two islands —like Alaska, which Putin drew his attention to, and the Andes (and his bunker), in terms of eugenicist broligarch end days prepper fantasies and anthropogenic climate change, which like-minded GOP elite have knowingly been forcing on the world for decades.

          The Koch bros suggested pride to the minions who visit the Smithsonian; the glory of ‘adaption’ by moving back into underground caves. Putin claims Russia will be paradise (in between giant karsts turning Siberian villages higglety piggelty). Thiel suggests Ayn Rand Seasteading, Musk’s American Dream is privatized NASA Space Force Colonies (HQ, Greenland). Trump tilts at windmills while furiously litigating with Scotland to build sea walls along his Saudi golf resort beach. They know it’s not a hoax. They’re criminally self-absorbed idiots, but that’s beside the point.

          Greenland? Iceland?
          I bet Putin quite convincingly told Trump; if you don’t do it, I will.

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          reply to misnomer bjet:

          Where did you see the report of Trump emerging “white faced and shaking” from his meetup with Putin? I’m not doubting it, but it would mean that Putin has switched his Trump-exploitation method from flattery to threats–a major change for both of them.

          I would love to know more about this!

        • Parker Dooley says:

          “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” — Gerald Ford 10/6/1976

  12. Error Prone says:

    Ed Walker’s “This is not a Constitutional Moment” post a bit of time ago has closed comments. With Jack Smith testifying, I thought I would throw out for the lawyers here, the Second paragraph of Articie 2, which says, “In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

    The “such Exceptions . . .” language suggests preeminence of Congress, having power to curb the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the federal Courts. The language is there, so what’s precedent if any, and does it have promise to assert Congressional preeminence? Has it been used and subject to Court interpretation?

    To me, it suggests Congress can specifically rewrite any Court decision, and pass campaign finance reform and specify the question is so fundamentally a legislative matter that the Court system shall be denied jurisdiction to review, the Court not being an elective branch. Ed, in particular, what are the barriers to saying in election matters Congress, as the most fundamental branch answerable to vote of the people, has absolute power to set up jurisdiction barriers? It could be a Pandora’s box thing, but what, has it been litigated even? The whole Money Talks problem could be jurisdictionally removed, yes, no?

  13. Sandy_22JAN2026_1229h says:

    From the beginning, I’ve wondered whether what is going under ballroom is more important to the Miller, Vance, Black, Thiel, Vought, etc., group, even as they keep Trump busy designing the ballroom and now the upstairs. Perhaps the bunker will include something like command central for the surveillance state.

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  14. Doctor Biobrain says:

    Good news! I’m under budget and ahead of schedule on my full sized replica of the Taj Mahal! My budget is fifty bajillion dollars and it was scheduled for completion in September 2085 and I’ve already finished the preliminary work by posting this comment without spending a dime! Praise me, daddy! Love me! Please! 😢

  15. Error Prone says:

    Doc Biobrain – This is the time to say two things: The Iranian Nuclear site survived a bunker buster, a couple actually, delivered by a B-2. Testing is needed, the Iranians cannot be ahead. Second, back to the plans to enhance the safe room; Hitler’s Bunker had marble walls, and priceless paintings on the walls. Another, redesign needed. Make Bunkers Great Again.

  16. nomorewalking4me says:

    I don’t think it’ll ever actually be completed

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  17. Matt Foley says:

    https://6abc.com/post/philadelphia-slavery-exhibits-presidents-house-removed-trump-administration-directive/18451011/
    PHILADELPHIA — The National Park Service began removing a slavery memorial at the President’s House in Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon — an exhibit that opened in 2010 and honored the lives of the nine people held there who were enslaved by President George Washington.

    I am trying really hard not to punch a hole in the wall.

  18. e.a. foster says:

    Donni is such a coward. He was shot at once and is scared? People in the military are shot at every time there is a war. They don’t tear down buildings to build a ball room and bunker. Police Officers are shoot at but they aren’t building bunkers and ball rooms.
    $400M. to build whatever and most likely a great deal more money will be required. In the meantime the rest of the country will have difficulty getting by, well except for the billionaire and millionaire class.
    Previous presidents appear to have been fine with their living arrangements. Donni is just a scared old man who thinks he is going to live forever. He is 79. he could pop off any day, why spend all that money building something which he thinks will protect him during a war.

    • Snowdog of the North says:

      Maybe somebody told him about Lincoln. He was shot at a few times before April 14, 1865. In July 1864 he was shot at while observing Early’s attack on Washington, and in August 1864 someone shot through his hat while he was coming back to the White House from the Soldier’s Home. Lincoln wasn’t a coward, of course, so he resisted extra security measures. But that’s why Trump thinks he’s smarter than Lincoln.

      Someone should tell him about nuclear wars and how it’s really futile to try to harden a place like the White House against a direct hit. That’s why we have those flying command posts.

      I think he should be encouraged to get on that flying bribe from the Qataris and just fly around in it for the rest of his life. No need to spy proof it – you can assume that telling him anything is like telling it directly to Putin anyway. If it happens to fail in flight somehow, oh well. We can always replace a president.

  20. MsJennyMD says:

    Dancing with the Billionaires in a Bunker-Ballroom.
    Competition in the Bunker Bolero, Survival of Swing, First-Aid Foxtrot, Power Generated Paso Doble, Waltz for Water, Quickstep for Food and Safely Samba.

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