‘Gonzo bonkers’: Trump’s plan to militarize triumphal arch sparks pushback

Lawmakers and analysts alike are perplexed by President Trump’s surprise declaration that his proposed triumphal arch will house “a top grade military complex” in addition to tourist attractions.

Trump over the weekend claimed that the structure, to be built between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, will “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas,” as well as store “large quantities” of ammunition.

Critics are dubious the administration can successfully argue in favor of such military measures for the arch, given its already close proximity to the Pentagon and several nearby bases and barracks. The changes needed to make the proposed 250-foot structure into a military site would also require new analysis from federal departments for ultimate approval, even as the Trump administration has sought to bulldoze ahead on construction.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, said at first blush, adding military elements to the arch “is not totally fictional or crazy — but also not optimal.”

With the arch being close to the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon, it could conceivably help defend the buildings from drones — albeit with target detection, radars and other receivers atop the structure rather than be used to launch U.S. drones, he told The Hill

O’Hanlon added that a technical analysis of military options and alternatives for the location would likely need to be done.

Trump claimed the changes were being made at the “strong request” of the U.S. military. Asked whether the Defense Department had requested the arch also double as a military complex, a Pentagon spokesperson on Thursday said they had nothing to provide beyond Trump’s Truth Social post.

Critics have particularly latched onto the fact that Trump’s new military plans for the monument would have explosive ammunition stored and drones launched from the middle of a busy traffic circle and close to the city’s airport, adding avoidable safety risks into the mix.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), whose district includes Arlington, its National Cemetery and Ronald Reagan National Airport, on Tuesday decried putting a drone launching site directly in the landing path for the city’s airport, calling it “a stupid, dangerous, and unworkable idea.”

Safety worries are not without warrant, as Washington, D.C.’s crowded airspace led to the deadly January 2025 collision of an American Airlines commercial plane with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, a half mile from Reagan National Airport. All 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed in the crash.

“Trump’s notion to make his vanity arch an ammunition depot for ‘snipers’ in a location where snipers have never been needed would place a large weapons cache within feet of thousands of tourists, pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers on major commuter traffic thoroughfares and Metro’s Blue Line,” Beyer said in a statement, adding that such work would necessitate a redo of all prior impact and safety studies.

Beyer plans to join an Oct. 1 protest outside Memorial Circle, organized by nonprofit Public Citizen, during which military veterans and others will demand the administration withdraw its plans to build the arch “and instead focus on real issues that affect our active military members, veterans and all Americans,” the group announced Thursday.

Others have pointed to the Pentagon’s already strained budget as reason enough to put the brakes on the arch’s construction.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, has questioned whether federal funds should be used to build it.

“There’s a lot of things that we need the military funding for, in fact, we’re short on military funding right now,” Simpson told reporters Monday, adding that he hoped administration officials “would come to Congress and ask for an appropriation for it.”

“If it was my choice, I wouldn’t put any of that money into the arch,” he said.

The arch’s new designation as a military site upends Trump’s original vision for the structure, unveiled last October and meant to honor “me,” the president told reporters at the time. The administration had since insisted the arch is in honor of the United States’ 250th anniversary and a tourist attraction — until this past weekend.

The National Park Service’s proposals for the structure were approved in May by the heavily Trump-appointed Commission of Fine Arts, but the project would ultimately need approval from the National Capital Planning Commission — something that can’t happen until the completion of federally required historic preservation reviews.

The White House, Interior Department and the National Park Service did not respond to questions from The Hill as to whether the administration will submit new proposals for the arch.

Also in the mix are the results of a month-long Federal Aviation Administration evaluation, released on Friday, which concluded that the arch would not pose a risk to airspace.

But Beyer pointed out that the review did not take into account the presence of military drones and that if Trump wants to move forward with his new plans, “the FAA’s prior work over the past six months to rubber stamp this proposal with a dubious safety study will be obsolete, and they will have to do it all over again.”

Other critics say Trump is abusing naming national security as justification for unpopular projects, as he did with construction of the White House ballroom. The president has insisted the ballroom is necessary for national security as it will include a military complex underneath. The Supreme Court earlier this month ruled that construction was allowed to continue.

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, said the president’s idea is “not just wrong, it’s gonzo bonkers, it’s just completely divorced from reality.”

“That arch is going to be in the middle of a traffic circle. I don’t know what it’s defending against,” Bolton said on MS Now on Tuesday. “I think Trump’s just abusing the concept of national security. He thinks he’ll get deference by the judiciary if he can say the ballroom, the arch, the who knows what else is fundamentally for national security. The courts have got to look through that.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, soon after the announcement said Americans were “sick of the military being used as an excuse for Trump’s architectural whims and narcissistic fancies.”

“Does Trump understand no one wants his stupid arch?” Raskin wrote on X Monday. “Dressing it up as a military necessity doesn’t help.”