Scaffolding and tarps now shroud the White House's North Portico — not for cosmetic touch-ups, but for a security fortification the Secret Service has wanted for years, coming online just as foreign governments plot to assassinate the president.
A White House official told CNN the North Portico work is focused on "enhancing security," with completion expected by mid-September, according to Baltimore News. The permanent bureaucracy's building gets hardened. The man the American people elected to occupy it faces active kill lists from Tehran.
Baltimore News reported that Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. on an Iranian plot to kill the president — the latest in a string of threats that includes an alleged terror plot targeting a UFC event on the White House lawn in June and a scheme tied to April's White House Correspondents' Dinner. Forbes made no mention of the assassination plots in its coverage, focusing instead on construction costs and aesthetic controversies.
The North Portico project is one piece of a broader fortification and construction blitz. A 90,000-square-foot ballroom is rising on the site of the demolished East Wing, featuring a drone port, sniper nests, and an underground bunker, per Baltimore News. Forbes reported that a previously unannounced South Lawn helipad saw its $13 million budget inflated by another $875,000 in anticipation of a likely September state visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping, citing Washington Post records of contractor data.
New fencing around the White House and Lafayette Park is also in the works, Forbes reported, which would let the Secret Service restrict pedestrian access at will — pending review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts.
The price tag across 18 Trump-launched D.C. construction projects could hit $1.2 billion, according to a New York Times estimate cited by Forbes, with a White House official suggesting taxpayers would cover most of it. The ballroom alone reportedly runs $600 million, more than half from public funds.
Cosmetic work has proceeded in parallel: Rose Garden paving, a new Oval Office walkway, 200-foot flagpoles, and gold signage, Baltimore News noted.
The contrast writes itself. The Secret Service's long-sought perimeter upgrades move forward on schedule. The building gets its bunker, its sniper nests, its drone port. Meanwhile, the president who survived an assassin's bullet on the campaign trail now contends with Iranian intelligence operations targeting his life — and the public is left to wonder what resources actually flow to protect the person, versus the property.
The fortress is being built. The question is whether anyone inside it is safe.
