President Trump shared two AI-generated images on Truth Social over the weekend showing what he is calling a “DronePort” on top of his planned White House ballroom.
One image shows rows of black military drones arranged in a circle on a glossy rooftop, ringed by soldiers in tactical gear, with fireworks bursting behind the Washington Monument. The other depicts a similar scene at sunset, with attack drones, fuel trucks and a phalanx of troops. Both are stamped with the official White House seal.
Two AI-generated images President Trump shared on Truth Social over the weekend depicting his proposed “DronePort” on top of the new White House ballroom.
“The DronePort at the White House Ballroom will be, perhaps, the most sophisticated anywhere in the World!” Trump wrote in a message accompanying the images. “It will safeguard our Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C., long into the future.”
The mockups are part of a broader fight playing out on Capitol Hill. WIRED reported this week that the White House is pushing Congress to approve $1 billion in security funding for the East Wing project, including a roof designed to conceal a “counteroffensive drone port and rocket launchers,” bulletproof glass and a hardened underground bunker.
The ballroom itself is being paid for by donors that include Apple, Meta and Amazon, but White House officials told WIRED they were uncomfortable with private companies effectively underwriting a presidential bunker.
The funding push has stalled. Senate Republicans tried to slip the $1 billion into a bigger immigration-enforcement bill last week, but parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled against it. Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told reporters the deeper problem was that “the votes aren’t there, plainly and simply.” Trump then called for MacDonough to be fired.
In the Sunday Truth Social post, Trump also went after U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee who in April ordered above-ground work on the ballroom halted unless Congress authorized it. Trump said Leon “should stop playing games with America’s Security” and warned that if Washington is attacked, the judge “will be held responsible for the Death and Destruction caused to our Country.”
Democrats have used the funding ask to hammer Trump on priorities. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who has been rallying his caucus for a floor fight over the $1 billion, recently wrote, “At a time when Americans can’t make ends meet, Republicans say ‘Let them eat cake’ — and then hand Trump a billion dollars to build a ballroom to serve it in.” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., took aim at Trump’s claim that no taxpayer money was involved, posting on X that “$1 billion is a lot more than one penny.”
