Insiders Blow Up Trump’s New Ballroom Excuse

Evan Vucci / REUTERS White House insiders are throwing cold water on President Donald Trump’s attempts to fast track his vanity ballroom project after releasing critical new information.

Trump, 80, scored a Supreme Court victory last week when Chief Justice John Roberts allowed construction on the project to continue while the high court continues to debate a case to halt it entirely.

The ballroom began as a modest event-space renovation costing an estimated $200 million; however, it has since ballooned to $600 million —with taxpayers expected to cover more than half.

As the case has moved through the courts, Trump has shifted his language, focusing more on national security than the ballroom itself.

Trump told reporters last Wednesday it will also have a “bomb shelter” as well as a “Drone port” on the roof.

He now calls it a “military complex” on social media.

“Before we started work, the military came to see me, and they said, ‘Sir, we have an opportunity to do something incredible here, and we’ve been trying to do it for 100 years, but we’ve never had an opportunity like that.’ I said, `Look, go ahead, design what you want,’” Trump told reporters last Wednesday during a tour of the construction.

When the SCOTUS ruling was announced, Trump posted on Truth Social that the construction of the ballroom is “so vital for National Security.” However, three former officials have now revealed that a highly protected nuclear bunker already exists deep under the White House, and was built over a decade ago.

The existing underground bunker can shelter the president and his top aides in a national security emergency, the three officials said, speaking to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity to protect elements of the facility that have not been previously reported.

Buried more than 60 feet beneath the White House complex, two of the officials said the facility was secretly completed during the Obama administration and can accommodate dozens of people for multiple weeks, according to the Post.

Previously, the only bunker was known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC, built during World War II in 1942 in the basement of the East Wing.

The two sources said the bunker was constructed to withstand a nuclear blast, which would allow the president and his aides to run the country from a secure command center in a crisis.

The existence of a modern military bunker undermines the Trump administration’s legal argument that his ballroom, also with an underground bunker, needs to be built to ensure national security, according to the former officials who spoke to the Post.

The Post did not report some key details of the bunker and its secret construction to protect White House security protocols.