President Donald Trump appears to be tightening his security around the White House while he’s building his new presidential security bunker.
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Trump has been doing his beautification work on what’s known as Presidential Park, more formally known as Lafayette Square, which sits across from the White House, outside of the secure area of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. But the work was completed months ago, as D.C. resident and anti-Trump activist Joe Flood said this week on X. The tall fence around the area remains in place, even though there’s a huge fence around the White House with agents stationed around it.
Now it appears they might be making it permanent, which will prevent people from being able to take close photographs of the White House without the fence in the way.
“Trump officials on Thursday will publicly present their latest plans to permanently fence Lafayette Square,” the Washington Post reported. “The project, a longtime Secret Service priority, was discussed but never approved in past administrations, as officials wrestled with how to boost security without unduly restricting public access, said four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail internal conversations.”
The move comes after Trump bragged that he has eliminated crime in Washington D.C.
Trump has claimed that he simply does what the Secret Service says. “I just follow what they’d like to do,” he said, according to the report.
Trump has significantly increased his security during this term. Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden all faced attacks and assassination attempts before Trump was shot at in 2024 outside of the White House while on a campaign stop.
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It’s unclear if Trump is growing increasingly fearful about his security situation, but over the past year, there have been significant changes, including his speaking behind bulletproof glass and his incident of secretly switching planes out of his Qatari-gifted plane when flying out of Turkey after a NATO meeting.
Trump was the first president since Sept. 11, 2001, to be rushed to the presidential bunker due to security fears. It came when Washington residents protested the brutal murder of George Floyd in 2020. A little over one block away from the White House was “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” outside of the AFL-CIO building on 16th Street N.W. He is now renovating and significantly expanding the bunker, his administration has said in court documents. They consider it crucial for national security and the president’s safety.
Protests often take place outside of the White House. A permanent camp has been outside the White House since 1981. It’s known as the “White House Peace Vigil.”
The report said that the Secret Service wants a “permanent visitors’ visitor screening center.” One was previously built on the southwest side of the White House off of 17th and E Streets N.W. There is a large area south of the White House known as The Ellipse that has more space than Lafayette Square and wouldn’t block off any other buildings or prevent the infamous tourist photos.
As the economy continues to struggle and the affordability crisis continues, the Post report closed with Trump debating whether to change the red bricks in Lafayette Square to something fancier.
“We have a big decision to make,” Trump said in the Oval Office in August. “Do we take the pavers that are red, you know, the red brick pavers? And do we change them into a granite? They’re beautiful, but they’re not the original.”
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