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See the full story · 5 sourcesTrump takes time from his day to marvel at the granite and grass being used in his White House makeover
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President Donald Trump led reporters on a tour of the White House construction site on Tuesday, unveiling the new granite helipad on the South Lawn and holding forth at length on the various grades of stone, sight lines and square footage as he called the hard-hatted workmen “real artists.”
Five months into a war with Iran that appears no closer to ending and days after asking the Supreme Court to let him resume work on a ballroom a federal appeals court ordered stopped, the president summoned the White House press pool for the impromptu media availability to boast about the changes he has made to the Southern entrance to the building on Wednesday, during the time his public schedule had reserved for a “policy meeting.”
Instead of discussing policy with aides, he began to boast to the assembled cameras and journalists about the comparative attributes of granite versus asphalt for the White House driveway, wax about the living properties of grass and talk up his own prowess at renovation projects.
"I was very good at real estate, like maybe the best in a lot of ways, and I love construction," the president said. "I love seeing things properly taken care of."
Trump spent the bulk of the appearance on the stone itself. The white granite, which he said had been quarried in California, appeared to be cut in what he described as a radial pattern — "every stone is two degrees rounded," he said — and laid four inches thick, rather than the inch or inch and a half he said is standard.
He returned repeatedly to its rated compressive strength of 35,000 pounds per square inch, against roughly 5,000 for hard concrete.
"This granite has a million-year life," he said. "You'll never see a crack in this granite. I will go on the line. So in 10 years, if you see a crack, you'll say, 'Well, Trump just said you'll never see a crack.'"
He also said the helipad, which will bear a hand-carved seal, is "very close to being finished" and could be completed by the time Chinese president Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for a state visit next month.
While the president claimed that unnamed people had “wanted” a helipad at the White House for decades, the new project was made necessary by an unresolved problem with the next-generation helicopters slated for use as Marine One, the VH-92.
Manufactured by Sikorsky, the helicopters are far more powerful than the VH-3D Sea King aircraft that have ferried presidents to and from the South Lawn for decades, but that power comes with a downside: burnt grass.
After years of attempts to fix the problem, Sikorsky decided instead to pay for a helipad to eliminate the risk to grass from landing on the South Lawn.
The helipad is just one of numerous embellishments and changes the president has made to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since returning to power last year, including his ongoing effort to replace the demolished East Wing with a massive ballroom that has been the subject of an ongoing court battle.
Trump described the ballroom now under construction as a joint project with the military, and disclosed a series of details about its design — a drone-proof roof, a fleet of drones stationed on top to defend Washington, a structure extending five stories and "almost 65 feet" underground, with shear walls of high-strength concrete.
"That structure is the most powerful because it's needed for bad purpose," he said, adding that it would withstand small-arms fire where the tents previously used for South Lawn events would not. "You take AK-47s. You take the most powerful. It laughs at it."
He then blamed a lawsuit for making those details public.
Trump attacked the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued over the project, calling it "a fake deal" and saying he had warned the organization that litigating would expose the building's security features.
"I said to them, you know, if you do this, you'll file it in court, and people will see what we're doing," he said. "And the enemy shouldn't be allowed to see it. They didn't care about that because they don't care about the country."
Asked what he would do if the Supreme Court ruled against him on the ballroom, Trump said he could not imagine it happening.
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