Trump is prepping DC for invasion. But by whom?

Finn Gomez/Getty Images

A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here .

The Trump administration is leaning into national security arguments to remake parts of Washington in line with the president’s fancy and to create a buffer around him.

Either the administration is legitimately worried about armed invasion, nervous about an attack at a time when the president has started one war and ordered the kidnapping of another country’s president, or it’s looking for justifications to spend taxpayer money on President Donald Trump’s pet projects.

National security is a catchall for presidential power. Trump has tried to use it to justify tariffs; deportations; extrajudicial attacks on alleged drug-trafficking boats; and his expansionist designs on Greenland, among many other things.

Now, national security is turning the capital into fortress DC.

First, the East Wing demolition was rebranded from ballroom preparation to massive underground military installation. Security needs were meant to justify the approximately $400 million in taxpayer dollars requested for the project despite Trump’s previous promise it would be privately funded.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

The deployment of National Guard troops who mill around tourist areas has been extended through the end of Trump’s term , which will cost another $1.4 billion, according to one estimate the Pentagon provided to lawmakers. That’s on top of the hundreds of millions the move has already cost.

Now the triumphal arch Trump wants erected will do double duty as a sniper’s nest, weapons cache and drone port, according to the president’s social media post.

National security is also Trump’s excuse for kicking CNN, MS NOW and Politico out of the White House. He said combating “FAKE NEWS” is a matter of national security. The news organizations have sued based on the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and of the press.

The executive mansion is one of the most secure locations on Earth, and it has had a fallout shelter and command center since the 1940s.

Presidents have long invoked national security to justify their actions and to expand their powers, in large part because the courts are reluctant to stand in their way on that subject.

And conservative Supreme Court justices bought in to the idea that a new East Wing must be built immediately for security reasons. A historically minded citizen has no cause to sue, they reasoned, in part because of the threat of attack.

From the court’s decision:

“The Secretary of the Army, for example, represents that ‘[t]he height and mass’ of the planned above-ground ballroom are ‘crucial’ to shield the planned underground military installation ‘from kinetic impacts,’ and that, without such height and mass, ‘engineers would need to dig impractically deep.’”

Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberals in arguing the construction was likely unlawful. Without mentioning national security, he noted that Congress has not authorized the construction or authorized appropriations to pay for it, as required by law.

In addition to the military complex under the East Wing, the buffer around the building has grown, at least for the moment. The Ellipse to the south of the building has been closed since the UFC match over the summer , apparently to regrow grass destroyed at the event and also to construct a helipad . Down the street from the Ellipse, a large portion of the National Mall has also been closed until 2027 for turf and tree repair, according to the National Park Service .

Lafayette Square to the north of the building has been fenced off for fountain repair. But the Secret Service has kept the area closed as it proposes plans to permanently install fencing around the park, which free speech advocates argue should be maintained as a place for gathering and protest.

The park would reopen, according to Secret Service plans presented to the Commission on Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission , but gates would make it easier to close again. Most recently, the Secret Service said the Ellipse and Lafayette Square should remain closed through the end of the month during a visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Rebranding the triumphal arch as a national security priority is the strangest riff on Trump’s frequent citation of national security to get things he wants.

Never mind that the site planned for the arch sits in the middle of a traffic circle in the middle of a highway between the Potomac River and Arlington National Cemetery with ample military sites, including the Pentagon and Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, nearby.

When plans were presented to the National Capital Planning Commission, which has been stuffed with Trump supporters, there were descriptions of public spaces rather than a military site. Apparently, the plans are changing, at least according to Trump’s social media post.

Trump on Sunday described the arch as “a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”

That sounds like the kind of defensive capability needed to repel an attack rather than to maintain law and order.

CNN’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller, noted that US law precludes the use of the military against US citizens, so who exactly are these snipers protecting the city against?

The DC police, the FBI and multiple other agencies have SWAT teams in the city, he said, which makes the need for a triumphal arch full of military gear confusing.

“It’s not much of a Trojan horse in that the cat’s out of the bag,” Miller told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Monday. “Anybody who would target Washington, who was a foreign adversary, would know what it was, what was in it, and where to hit.”

The arch would be 250 feet high, still safe for air traffic going into nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which recently gave approval for the arch , although its green light said nothing about military drones or snipers.

Let’s all hope the US is never at the point where military snipers are taking aim across the river from the top of a triumphal arch.

The administration has prioritized national security spending; Trump has promised a “Golden Dome” missile defense shield to protect the US from a potential missile attack. It is modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome, although the difference in scale between the US and Israel is making things difficult and the cost astronomical.

That defense shield is one reason Trump also wants to drastically increase military spending, ramping up to about $1.5 trillion, an increase of about 40%, although Congress has not yet approved the jump.

The British sacked the city in 1814. Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked commercial planes and flew one into the Pentagon in 2001. But the size and geography of the US make any type of siege against the city unthinkable. It was heavily fortified and encircled by military forts during the Civil War, when it was a main target of the Confederate army. President Abraham Lincoln even came under fire during a visit to Fort Stevens in the northern part of the city. Some of those forts have been turned into parks today.

The former estate of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, directly across the Potomac, which had been seized by the Union during the war, was bought by Congress and converted into Arlington National Cemetery, outside of which Trump wants to install the arch/sniper/drone complex.

Trump and some of his supporters have described the influx of immigrants to the US as an invasion, but there’s no evidence to suggest DC is in danger of attack. The question over whether the administration can use the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected gang members without a court hearing has been left unresolved as the people in question were ultimately deported under different authority.

Trump has been the subject of assassination attempts, and in 2020, during his first term, he was rushed into the White House bunker during tense protests in Lafayette Square.

The fact of those threats is helping Trump to use the necessity of national security to get what he wants now, even if he didn’t make the argument until planning for his ballroom and arch were well underway.

Finn Gomez/Getty Images

本文的另一个版本曾刊登在 CNN 的“要闻速递”（What Matters）新闻简报中。如需订阅，请点击此处免费注册。

特朗普政府正利用国家安全论调，按照总统的意愿改造华盛顿的部分地区，并为其建立缓冲地带。

要么是本届政府真的担心武装入侵，担心在总统发动了一场战争并下令绑架他国总统的情况下遭到袭击；要么就是本届政府在寻找理由，将纳税人的钱花在唐纳德·特朗普总统的个人项目上。

国家安全成了总统权力的万能借口。特朗普曾试图以此为借口，为加征关税、驱逐出境、对涉嫌贩毒船只进行法外打击以及对格陵兰岛的扩张野心等诸多举措辩护。

如今，国家安全正在将首都华盛顿特区变成一座堡垒。

首先，东翼拆除工程的名称从宴会厅准备工作改为大型地下军事设施建设。尽管特朗普此前承诺该项目将由私人出资，但出于安全考虑，该项目仍被要求动用约4亿美元的纳税人资金。

朱莉娅·德马雷·尼金森/美联社

据五角大楼向国会提供的估算，在旅游区附近部署国民警卫队的计划已延长至特朗普任期结束，这将额外耗资14亿美元。而这还不包括此前该计划已花费的数亿美元。

根据总统的社交媒体帖子，特朗普想要建造的凯旋门现在将兼具狙击手巢穴、武器库和无人机港的双重功能。

国家安全也是特朗普将CNN、MS NOW和Politico赶出白宫的借口。他声称打击“假新闻”事关国家安全。这些新闻机构已根据保护言论自由和新闻自由的宪法第一修正案提起诉讼。

总统官邸是地球上最安全的地方之一，自 20 世纪 40 年代以来就设有防空洞和指挥中心。

长期以来，总统们一直援引国家安全来为其行为辩护并扩大权力，这很大程度上是因为法院不愿在这方面阻挠他们。

保守派最高法院大法官们也认同出于安全考虑必须立即重建东翼的观点。他们认为，出于对历史的尊重，公民没有理由提起诉讼，部分原因正是因为存在遭受袭击的威胁。

法院判决书内容如下：

例如，陆军部长表示，计划建造的地上舞厅的“高度和质量”对于保护计划建造的地下军事设施“免受动能冲击”至关重要，如果没有这样的高度和质量，“工程师们就需要挖掘得非常深，这在实际操作中是不切实际的”。

首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨与最高法院的自由派大法官们一道，认为这项工程很可能违法。他没有提及国家安全问题，但指出国会既没有按照法律规定授权这项工程，也没有授权拨款支付相关费用。

除了东翼下方的军事设施外，大楼周围的缓冲区也扩大了，至少目前是这样。大楼南侧的椭圆形草坪自夏季UFC比赛后一直关闭，显然是为了恢复比赛期间被破坏的草坪，并建造一个直升机停机坪。据国家公园管理局称，椭圆形草坪附近的国家广场大部分区域也已关闭，直至2027年，进行草坪和树木的修复工作。

大楼北侧的拉斐特广场因喷泉维修而被围了起来。但特勤局仍将该区域封闭，因为他们计划在公园周围永久安装围栏。言论自由倡导者则认为，公园应该保留为集会和抗议场所。

根据美国特勤局提交给美术委员会和国家首都规划委员会的计划，公园将重新开放，但大门将便于再次关闭。最近，特勤局表示，在中国领导人习近平访问期间，椭圆形草坪和拉斐特广场应继续关闭至本月底。

将凯旋门重新包装成国家安全优先事项，这是特朗普经常援引国家安全来达到目的的最奇怪做法。

先别管计划建造拱门的地点位于波托马克河和阿灵顿国家公墓之间的高速公路环岛中央，附近还有五角大楼和迈尔-亨德森联合基地等众多军事设施。

当这些计划提交给由特朗普支持者组成的国家首都规划委员会时，其中描述的是公共空间，而非军事用地。但显然，至少根据特朗普的社交媒体帖子来看，这些计划正在发生变化。

特朗普周日将这座拱门描述为“一座顶级军事综合体/凯旋门，用于安置、储存并能够快速使用大量无人机和狙击手，部署在屋顶和广场区域，此外还储存了大量的狙击弹药。”

这听起来像是抵御攻击所需的防御能力，而不是维护法律和秩序所需的能力。

CNN首席执法和情报分析师约翰·米勒指出，美国法律禁止对美国公民使用军队，那么这些狙击手究竟是在保护这座城市免受谁的侵害呢？

他说，华盛顿特区警察、联邦调查局和其他多个机构在市内都设有特警队，这使得建造一座摆满军事装备的凯旋门变得令人费解。

“这算不上什么特洛伊木马，因为秘密已经泄露了，”米勒周一告诉CNN的帕梅拉·布朗。“任何以华盛顿为目标的外国敌对势力，都会知道那是什么，里面有什么，以及应该攻击哪里。”

据美国联邦航空管理局称，这座拱门将高达 250 英尺，对于进出附近罗纳德·里根华盛顿国家机场的空中交通来说仍然安全。该管理局最近批准了这座拱门的建设，尽管其批准文件中并未提及军用无人机或狙击手。

让我们都希望美国永远不会发展到军事狙击手站在凯旋门顶上，隔河瞄准的地步。

本届政府已将国家安全支出列为优先事项；特朗普承诺建造“金穹顶”导弹防御系统，以保护美国免受潜在的导弹袭击。该系统以以色列的“铁穹”系统为蓝本，但美以两国规模的差异使得项目难度加大，成本也高得惊人。

特朗普希望大幅增加军费开支，达到约 1.5 万亿美元，增幅约 40%，这也是他想要大幅增加军费开支的原因之一，尽管国会尚未批准这一增幅。

1814年，英国人洗劫了这座城市。2001年，基地组织恐怖分子劫持民航客机，并驾驶其中一架撞向五角大楼。但美国的幅员辽阔和地理环境使得任何形式的围攻都难以想象。内战期间，这座城市防御工事坚固，四周环绕着军事要塞，是南方邦​​联军队的主要目标。就连亚伯拉罕·林肯总统在访问位于城市北部的史蒂文斯堡时也曾遭到炮火袭击。如今，其中一些要塞已被改造成公园。

位于波托马克河对岸的南方邦联将军罗伯特·E·李的故居，在战争期间被北方联邦占领，后被国会买下并改建为阿灵顿国家公墓，特朗普想在公墓外建造拱门/狙击手/无人机综合体。

特朗普及其一些支持者将涌入美国的移民描述为入侵，但没有任何证据表明华盛顿特区面临攻击危险。关于政府是否可以利用1798年战时《敌侨法》在未经法庭审理的情况下驱逐涉嫌帮派成员的问题尚未得到解决，因为相关人员最终是根据其他法律依据被驱逐出境的。

特朗普曾多次遭到暗杀，2020 年，在他第一个任期内，拉斐特广场爆发紧张抗议活动期间，他被紧急送入白宫地堡。

这些威胁的事实帮助特朗普利用国家安全的必要性来达到他现在想要的目的，即使他直到宴会厅和拱门的规划进展顺利时才提出这一论点。