Trump Seethes as ‘Stupid Lawsuit’ Exposes Ballroom’s Underground ‘Military Complex’ Plans

President Donald Trump lashed out at a “stupid” legal challenge to his White House ballroom project that exposed, for the first time, that a “massive” military complex is being constructed beneath it, before also angrily attacking a New York Times critique of his design.

The president gave an impromptu presentation promoting the $400 million building project one day after The Times deep dive by qualified architects challenged the choices being made, just days before the plans are set for final approval by the National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday.

The report comes as a lawsuit, brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, argues that Trump bypassed required approvals from Congress and federal planning bodies. A federal judge is now weighing whether to halt construction altogether.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, the president gave reporters details of the underground military development and trashed The Times for its report, fixating on its claim of “faux windows” as he defended his “beautiful” ballroom as “ahead of schedule and under budget.”

Holding up artists’ renderings of the finished product drawn up that day, the president apologized for the impromptu presentation, adding he was busy “fighting wars and other things” as he made his case:

Talking about how beautiful the ballroom is. For 150 years, they’ve wanted to build a ballroom at the White House. Other presidents have wanted it. When we have dignitaries coming like President Xi of China or anybody else, we have very small rooms. They’re not big enough to handle the kind of capacity that you need. This is the same height as the White House. It’s an incredible fitting. You see what that is, right? Nice. Here’s another view. This is coming from right opposite the Treasury Building, beautiful capital, beautiful building, and one of the — I think it will be the finest ballroom of its kind anywhere in the world.

A lot of people are giving it really good reviews. Some are giving good reviews without even seeing the building, because this just came out today. These pictures we just made today, we got rid of, along, quite a while ago, the stairs on the south side. And it’s become really beautiful, but it matches and fits the White House. It’s also capable of handling the inauguration.

He continued to reveal that the building would have “all bulletproof glass,” as well as “drone-proof roofs and ceilings.”

“Everything’s drone-proof and bulletproof. And, unfortunately, we’re living in an age where that’s a good thing,” he said.

Rounding on his critics, he addressed the lawsuit before revealing more about the military complex being designed into the building’s basement:

So, we’re ahead of schedule and under budget. And all of this money, all of the money paid is paid by myself and donors, it’s all donors. There’s not one dime of government money going into the ballroom. Now, the military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed. But the military is building a massive complex under the ballroom, and that’s under construction and we’re doing very well. So we’re ahead of schedule on this part of it. The ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what’s being built under the military, including from drones and including from any other thing.

Attacking The Times, he trashed some of the details from Sunday’s report:

The glass on the windows, you see the big windows? The glass is extremely thick. It’s high-grade, bulletproof glass. So, all of the windows are bulletproof. I think The Times wrote, gee, some of the windows are fake. We have no fake windows. They said they talked about a stairway in the South. We don’t have a stairway in the South. That was replaced a long time ago.

Watch via NewsNation.

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