One of President Donald Trump’s greatest fears could explain the reason behind a key detail of his White House walkway renovation project.
As Trump, 79, addressed reporters during his healthcare affordability event in the Oval Office on Thursday, the president divulged an interesting fact about the black granite walkway being installed along the West Wing Colonnade.
“It’s a beautiful job they’re doing,” the president said of the renovation. “It’s highly polished granite in the areas you don’t walk on, and it’s called flame-finished in the areas that you do walk on—there’s no slip.”
The president, who turns 80 on June 14, shared on Tuesday in a call with CNBC’s Squawk Box his great fear of slipping and falling down stairs.
“We were a dead country. We had a guy that wasn’t respected,” Trump said to host Joe Kernen about former President Joe Biden. “He couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs, forget about down. He couldn’t walk up a flight, but he was falling all over the place.”
“I have to be careful because if I do trip or fall, it’s got to be the biggest [story],” the near-octagenarian revealed. “That’s why when I get out of those planes, I walk nice and slowly. I’m not looking to set any speed records.”
Trump, who is commonly seen gripping the handrail with anxiety as he delicately descends the stairs on Air Force One, has been clear about avoiding comparisons to his similarly geriatric predecessor.
“I’m very careful. You know, when I walk downstairs—like I’m on stairs like these stairs—I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record," the elderly president told military leaders during a September speech. “Just try not to fall because it doesn’t work out well... Just walk nice and easy. You don’t have to set any record.”
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on when the walkway would be finished, or whether there were more non-slip renovations to the People’s House on the horizon.
Construction on the walkway along the “45-second commute,” which connects the Oval Office to the executive residence, began late last month. The Tennessee flagstone pavers that were replaced by Trump’s black granite had lined the West Colonnade for over 60 years.
A White House spokesperson previously told the Daily Beast that the National Park Service would send the Tennessee flagstone pavers to a nursery for storage and future use.
As reporters filed out of the Oval Office after Trump’s briefing, CBS News White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe asked the president where the granite came from.
“Uh, it came from Italy,” Trump said, before clarifying that it wasn’t necessarily Italian granite.
“It was carved in Italy. It came from another location,” he added. “You know where the location is? Africa.”
“So you have African and Italian granite outside the Oval Office?” O’Keefe, 43, asked.
“Correct, is that okay?” Trump replied.
