President Donald Trump is using the recent, deadly shooting outside the White House to justify the construction of the former reality TV star’s controversial ballroom.
“Thank you to our great Secret Service and Law Enforcement for the swift and professional action taken this evening against a gunman near the White House, who had a violent history and possible obsession with our Country’s most cherished structure,” the commander-in-chief, 79, wrote via his social media platform, Truth Social, on Saturday, May 23.
“The gunman is dead after an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service Agents near the White House gates,” Trump continued. “This event is one month removed from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C. The national Security of our Country demands it!”
On Saturday, a Secret Service agent confirmed to Us Weekly that a shooter was shot and killed and a bystander was injured during the violent incident outside the White House. The suspected shooter — who has yet to be publicly named at the time of publication — allegedly opened fire at a Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington D.C., though no agents were injured.
“Shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, an individual in the area of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue pulled a weapon from his bag and began firing,” Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi told Us at the time. “Secret Service Police returned fire, striking the suspect who was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced deceased. During the shooting, one bystander was also struck by gunfire.”
It is unclear if the innocent bystander was struck by Secret Service Agents or the alleged shooter at the time of publication.
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Earlier this month, Trump repeated the same claim while stating that the 90,000-square-foot, $400 million project — double what he originally said the ballroom would cost — will be “the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world” and “very safe.”
“You’ll never see anything like it. And it’ll also be very safe. It’s going to be a very safe ballroom,” he said during an address at his second Rose Garden Club dinner. “You look through it, and you can see as perfectly as though it weren’t there. Now how’d they do that? I don’t know, but it’s at the highest level of safety, and you won’t have a situation as you had two weeks ago on Saturday night.”
While the president and his Republican allies have long claimed that the controversial ballroom would not cost U.S. tax payers a cent, Trump and senate Republicans have since proposed that $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer funds pay for the president’s vanity project.
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