Trump’s building himself a bunker – it’s clear he knows he is failing
Trump’s building himself a bunker – it’s clear he knows he is failing
Trump’s building himself a bunker – it’s clear he knows he is failing
Trump’s building himself a bunker – it’s clear he knows he is failing
31 Comments
Full story here: Has [Donald Trump](https://inews.co.uk/topic/donald-trump?ico=in-line_link) entered the bunker phase of his presidency? He didn’t seem keen to leave the White House when asked a perfectly natural question about whether he would attend the wedding of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, to Bettina Anderson in The Bahamas this weekend.
“Uhhhh. He’d like me to go,” Trump hesitated. “I’m gonna try and make it. But it’s going to be just a small, little private affair. […] I said, “This is not good timing for me. I have a thing called ‘[Iran](https://inews.co.uk/topic/iran-crisis?srsltid=AfmBOooF9iLit2T7_OsvjWLmMOvJBhcK5MmEGLVcbaoTViThyGHumIR4&ico=in-line_link)‘ and other things.’ ”
Whether he shows up or not, the temptation to hunker in his bunker isn’t entirely metaphorical for Trump. A secure, underground lair at the White House could soon be all too real, not just in his mind. [The ballroom](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/pictures-show-trumps-vanity-ballroom-may-never-built-4362420?srsltid=AfmBOoqDxoOBIgnaVDPW-lvCSJu9ZRSX0YDlMAngzW_h7D8zPmHSqVnd&ico=in-line_link) that he has been obsessing about non-stop is going to be heavily fortified.
For an [estimated cost of $1bn (£750m)](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trump-ballroom-turning-toxic-fortress-billion-funding-security-4401008?srsltid=AfmBOor_BmkNa0J4KG79BRGFUX7MA7MovDFnk-49NINK8RNfWd8nVkhD&ico=in-line_link), a bill taxpayers would foot, the ballroom will extend six floors underground, with its own command and communications centre, military hospital, and a hardened roof of “impenetrable steel” with a base “for unlimited numbers of drones”, Trump said excitedly on a tour of the site.
There can be no more powerful symbol of a president under siege. As time goes by, Trump could fully morph into his Russian counterpart [Vladimir Putin](https://inews.co.uk/topic/vladimir-putin?ico=in-line_link), who has been reportedly hiding out from growing criticism in his own palatial bunker.
Nothing encapsulates this Trump presidency more than his [ever-more grandiose building projects](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trump-white-house-helipad-shows-vanity-comes-first-4425756?ico=in-line_link) (and swelling personal coffers). The East Wing of the White House has been torn down and the Arc de Trump – the 250ft monstrosity set to overpower the Lincoln Memorial – has just been approved by Trump’s own appointed US Commission of Fine Arts.
However these projects aren’t exactly going to plan. In a small sacrifice to public opinion, the triumphal arch has lost four intended lions at the base of the monument, but will retain the giant golden-winged statue at the top.
However, the $1bn for the ballroom bunker has run into opposition in Congress. This has been fueled by Republican panic about [facing the midterm elections](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trump-down-in-polls-busy-purging-own-republican-party-4426072?ico=in-line_link) with little to show for Trump’s second term apart from tacky monuments to his “greatness” and [gnawing questions about his age and health](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/now-trumps-friends-appear-worried-mental-state-4190370?srsltid=AfmBOoo8Q61ycKTFNDOVHgDPn3Eg1f_PouU0XiUtrS–H-sn_AD5qva-&ico=in-line_link).
Republican lawmakers are on the horns of a dilemma. Anyone who opposes Trump risks [unleashing the wrath of his Maga base](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trump-enforcer-isnt-afraid-go-after-other-republicans-4424161?ico=in-line_link). This happened on Tuesday to Thomas Massie, a Republican Representative for Kentucky, who lost to a Trump-backed primary opponent after harping on too much about the [Epstein scandal](https://inews.co.uk/topic/epstein-scandal?ico=in-line_link), and is therefore ineligible to run for re-election.
On the other hand, the finely-balanced Senate and House now harbour several seriously disaffected Republican lawmakers who have suddenly found a spine now they have been deselected and have nothing left to lose. They are bent on scuttling Trump’s plans.
Moreover, indulging the President – whose approval rating stands at just 35 per cent, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll – risks alienating the substantial slice of voters outside the Trump bunker who are furious about inflation, fuel prices and the Iran war.
As the Republican election guru, Karl Rove, warned this week in *The Wall Street Journal*, “The GOP’s chances will get worse if President Trump’s approval numbers keep declining […] The President comes across more as a heckler at a UFC match than as a reassuring wartime commander-in-chief.”
Members of Congress, who ran for their lives from a violent mob on January 6, 2021, are particularly enraged by the Department of Justice’s [plan to set up a $1,776bn (£1,323bn) slush fund](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/trump-behaving-dictator-america-wake-up-4426070?ico=in-line_link) (honouring 1776, the year of American independence) to pay alleged victims of the “weaponisation of justice” under former president Joe Biden.
The idea that rioters could be compensated for their actions that day was summed up by one social media user as: “Was your flagpole damaged from beating a police officer on January 6?”
Trump usually gets what Trump wants, so I wouldn’t set too much store by these stirrings of rebellion. He is more disinhibited than ever and less inclined to care what anybody thinks. However, the more boundaries he pushes, the more concern there is about how far he will go to hang on to power. Compensating his barmy army of election deniers for breaking the law over the 2020 presidential election surely invites them to repeat the exercise at the next one.
Trump’s hesitation over attending his son’s wedding confirms my view that he doesn’t rate Don Jr as a potential successor. He is thought to be cooling on Vice President [JD Vance](https://inews.co.uk/topic/jd-vance?ico=in-line_link) and doesn’t fully trust former rival “Little” Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State.
What are the odds that, come January 2029, Trump will be holed up in his bunker, refusing to leave the White House? If I were a gambler, I’d place a bet in the prediction markets on this.
Can’t wait for Downfall Part Two – American Führerbunker.
aaaww.. he want to go out like his hero… except Melania is gonna be like “you go ahead Dony, I’ll be right there” and then wall out of the bunker telling everyone she was a prisoner in all that.
if he’s hunkering down, it’s because he’s in absolutely horrible health. building a bunker that won;t be ready for years has nothing to do with anything.
He’s building a massive data center to monitor the citizenry.
GBU-57A/B MOP
Can someone more AI savy than me please do a downfall fist thumping generals meeting with the current cabinet in generals uniform. I want to see Rubio sweating and exasperated.
Next President will be stomping on the floor yelling “SHUT UP DOWN THERE!”
he doesn’t fall, but he doesn’t want to leave the white house
How is that tetrapodic Rove still alive?
Trump will be looking through a little window of his buried bunker like David Blaine doing an illusion. lol
A tomb*
Can we seal him in it like a mausoleum?
Trump isn’t failing… he’s doing exactly what he planned. I wish they would stop with the clickbait reporting.
The whole country is under reacting.
The old bunker was under the East Wing.
So then, bunker or a tomb?
Like Saddam, hiding in his spider hole.
don’t forget to stock the cyanide capsules
Bunker bitch redux
Trump doesn’t care about the bunker. He wants a ballroom.
The bunker renovation was cooked up to make a national security justification for the ballroom.
Didn’t Saddam do something similar?
https://youtu.be/Ifcg-wr95vQ
The good thing about bunkers is you can isolate them. Maybe by flattening whatever fake gold gaudy shitpile he builds above it and rebuilding the original wing.
Wow… how did I not make the connection? Trump is planning a power grab even more unprecedented than previous grabs. Perhaps the USA is done with elections after midterms. The bunker makes complete sense.
Hopefully it’s as useful to him as it was for another infamous dictator.
I bet if he hadn’t tried to slap some gilded, massive ballroom on top of the bunker, it could have been built. If he had simply done a normal size update/expansion of the footprint above ground, he could have probably done whatever he wanted below ground.
But because he had to do it in the Trumpiest way possible, that ballroom became a symbol of the entire boondoggle.
And right now it doesn’t help that at the same time he wants a billion for his ballroom-bunker, he’s also trying to get almost 2 billion just as a slush fund to hand out to cronies.
Bunkers seem inadequate for protection from your own citizens. Bunkers have air, electricity, and water that go into the bunker. If these are cut off, you’re basically besieged on an accelerated timeframe to it being unsurvivable. Bunkers are for protection against outside attackers that do not already control the territory.
Fascists do love their bunkers.
I would focus on the cost of the ballroom, not wild conjecture that he’s going to hide in a nuclear equipped bunker. That’s dumb.
Guess who else built a Bunker. Berlin 1945
Not an engineer but couldn’t a bunker be easily converted to a prison?