By Associated Press, PUBLISHED: September 20, 2026 By SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that the massive arch he wants to build between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery would become a “top grade military complex” able to host drones and snipers while storing ammunition.
It is one more example of how Trump is insisting that his initiatives to beautify the White House and the city are also serving a defensive purpose. Trump has been calling the new White House ballroom a “military complex” and arguing it is necessary for national security purposes.
It is one more example of how Trump is insisting that his initiatives to beautify the White House and the city are also serving a defensive purpose. Trump has been calling the new White House ballroom a “military complex” and arguing it is necessary for national security purposes.
The Republican president said in a social media post that he had agreed, at the “strong request” of the military, to convert the planned 250-foot-tall (76-meter) memorial arch “into 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.”
The Pentagon said it had no information beyond the president’s statement.
The arch is proposed for a circle adjacent to the Memorial Bridge, which is a heavy traffic area as one of a handful of connecting bridges between the nation’s capital and northern Virginia.
Obviously, The Trump Hidden Ammunition Depot is the perfect place to store drones, snipers and ammo, right near a key bridge and thousands of pedestrians. No enemy would be able to find it, much less dare to bomb it. Right?
And the insanity continues.
RODGER MALCOLM MITCHELL
“Trump has been calling the new White House ballroom a “military complex” and arguing it is necessary for national security purposes.”
An ammo dump in the White House. Now what could possibly go wrong with that?
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Perhaps even scarier than Trump’s mixture of lies and delusions is the actual fact that our military has been so weakened and diluted under him and his equally incompetent Dept. of War* head Pete Hegseth, that it’s actually conceivable that Washington D.C. might really become a target of militant action by non-state or even, someday, state actors who then might actually respond from the Drone-arch. Canada(!) is now such an unwilling but forced-into-it adversary that it’s stocking up with drones. For whom? Drones can’t reach overseas from Canada. Co-pilot says:
In short: Canada is already on track to procure up to 5,000 tactical ISR drones under current contracts, with a long‑term vision to scale production and procurement to millions over the next few years, but the exact final number will hinge on future option exercises and new deals,
Millions of drones would be hard to transport via Canada’s navy and it has no overseas enemies anyway (unlike the U.S., which is now hated everywhere). The conclusion in inescapable.
More likely, as you suggest, the Trump munitions depot – now broadly advertised to every terrorist everywhere by Trump himself, while the cowed Pentagon(!) stays mum – will become a rich target and will have to be heavily guarded itself, even beyond militant art critics.
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It would make a very attractive target to enemies foreign and domestic.
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Trump told me that he has made a deal with our enemies not attack his arch, so there is nothing to worry about.
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