Donald Trump said Thursday—without any explanation— that the military is “very much involved” in the construction of his controversial White House ballroom.
Trump made the vague comment during a lengthy Fox News interview in which he complained that the ballroom, which he will reportedly name after himself, is the subject of a lawsuit from a preservation group.
Last fall, Trump tore down the 123-year-old East Wing to make room for the 90,000-square-foot, $400 million project—a process that the National Trust for Historic Preservation says was done illegally.
“I am building the ballroom, and it’s a very big thing with the military and everything else. The military is very much involved,” Trump said on The Five over the phone. “It’s a big, big deal, and it’s great. It’s going to be beautiful.”
None of the five Fox hosts followed up.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast about the military’s involvement in the ballroom, or if Trump still considers the ballroom his “main priority,” as Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in October.
The Daily Beast has also reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.
The president also mentioned the military when discussing his renovations during a cabinet meeting earlier in the day.
“This ballroom is going to be something that’s so beautiful for the city, so desperately needed by presidents,” Trump said during the meeting. “It’s no secret the military wanted it more than anybody. It was supposed to be secret, but it became unsecret because of people that are really unpatriotic, saying things.”
The president’s renovation efforts also reportedly involve the construction of a defensive bunker underneath what was formerly the East Wing of the White House. It would replace the previous secure underground facility in that location built by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.
Trump continued, “We’re building an arc, a triumphal arc, which will be incredible for the city. Incredible. We’re fixing up what was the Kennedy Center, I was honored when the board changed the name a little bit. Actually, it shows that the Republican and the Democrats, they worked together,” he said, referencing the center’s controversial name change in December.
Trump has regularly promoted renderings of the ballroom by bringing them to the Oval Office and posting them on social media. His anticipation of the structure even resulted in him getting up from a meeting with nearly two dozen oil executives to gaze out the window at the location of the future ballroom.
“Wow, what a view,” he said of the still-under-construction site in January.
Last week, the judge handling the National Trust’s lawsuit seemed to take issue with how the Trump administration has justified the East Wing teardown, for which it did not seek congressional approval. Government lawyers have claimed a federal law allows for alterations “as the president may determine.”
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, CNN reported, said that labeling the construction of the ballroom as “an alteration… takes some brazen interpretation of the laws of vocabulary."
