In the hours after a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, President Donald Trump tried to rally support for his new White House ballroom.
“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
The Trump administration first announced plans to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom in place of the White House’s East Wing in July 2025. At the time, the White House said the ballroom would allow officials to host large-scale events with world leaders without using an “unsightly” tent.
The president said the ballroom would cost about $400 million, which he planned to raise from wealthy donors. Some major US companies — such as Amazon, Meta, and Apple — have already offered to help fund the project.
Construction began with the demolition of the East Wing in October, but has since been held up by the courts.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation of the United States, chartered by Congress in 1949, filed a lawsuit in December to stop construction. In a press release, the trust said Trump “disregarded” several laws and failed to obtain the necessary approval from Congress.
A federal judge halted construction of the ballroom in March, saying Trump lacked the legal authority to build it.
“Nothing should be allowed to interfere with its construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday, adding that it has “every highest security feature there is.”
Several senior members of the Trump administration, including the president and first lady Melania Trump, were present at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when shots rang out. No officials were injured in the shooting.
Members of the press present during the incident said they were surprised by the lack of security at the venue. “On my way out, I think about the security precautions — or lack thereof — that had struck me as surprisingly lax throughout the evening, given the presence of Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and several cabinet members,” Tim Röhn, the senior editor of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, said. Business Insider is part of the network.
Authorities said they have a suspect in custody, widely identified as 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance, California.
The interim chief of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, Jeffrey Carroll, said during a press conference that the suspect was armed with a shotgun, handgun, and knives.
Jeanine Pirro, US Attorney for the District of Columbia, said the suspect has been charged with one count of assault on a law enforcement officer using a dangerous weapon and two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence. He will be arraigned on Monday.
Todd Blanche, acting US attorney general, said during a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that law enforcement believes the suspect was targeting members of the Trump administration.
“It does appear he did in fact set out to target folks who work in the administration, likely including the president, but I want to wait and not get ahead of us on that,” Blanche said.
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