The White House Is a Fortress. It’s Not Supposed to Look Like One.

One of the less-discussed traditions of American presidents is how they hide the reality that they need protection. Following the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, however, Donald Trump and his allies have doubled down on their assertion that the ballroom he wants to build is essential to presidential safety.The justifications have been strikingly granular: The new building would have “bullet proof windows and glass,” “heavy steel,” and a “drone proof roof,” as Justice Department lawyers wrote in a court filing Monday night that echoed Trump’s recent posts on Truth Social. Congressional Republicans have shared that the building will have seven-inch-thick windows, amid their push to get taxpayers to spend $400 million on a project that Trump once billed as a gift from patriotic donors. As the Trump administration works to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to stop the ballroom’s construction, the structure sounds more and more like a fortress.It’s hard to keep track of the reasons to object to the president’s pet project, among them the administration’s bad-faith handling of the demolition and review processes, the structure’s unpopularity with Americans, and the way its composition violates rules of classical architecture. The latest reason emerged after a federal judge ordered construction to pause. The ruling allowed work on belowground features related to national security to proceed, referring to plans for a military facility beneath the new East Wing that the judge was able to review. In response, the White House began to argue that the aboveground portions were also related to national security, because they would protect the president. Since then, the details have just kept coming.Although tight security at the White House is nothing new, this kind of talk is, and it represents another way this presidency has abandoned its imperative of projecting modesty, openness, and stability. Even if the White House is a stronghold, it is not meant