Trump White House Gets New Security Focused Renovation
The White House is upgrading its front door in the latest project to take over the people’s house since Donald Trump returned to office.
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A Secret Service official confirmed to the Daily Beast that the White House was receiving security upgrades, but referred all further questions to the White House.
The new front door project is expected to take months, an official told CNN, which was first to report on the latest renovation.
Sources told CNN that the Secret Service has been advocating for the changes to fortify the entrance at the North Portico of the White House.
The move comes after the North Portico was recently completely blocked from view, with construction workers first putting up scaffolding and then covering the area in tarps printed to look like the entrance of the White House.
The Daily Beast has asked the White House for comment.
Trump, 80, has taken on a series of makeover projects at the White House in his second term, from bulldozing the entire East Wing of the White House to make way for a new ballroom with a bunker underneath, to paving over the Rose Garden grass with a patio and festooning nearly every surface in the Oval Office with gold decorations.
But unlike the many other projects the president has taken on, the project to upgrade the front door is entirely focused on enhancing security and serves no cosmetic purpose, according to the official cited by CNN. It’s expected to be completed by mid-September, an official told the network.
Last month, construction workers were spotted putting up scaffolding around the North Portico of the White House. An official told the Daily Beast that the 200-year-old columns would undergo standard restoration, focusing on stone repair.
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Trump had been spotted lingering outside the North Portico of the White House in May and running his hand along one of the pillars. He has often complained that the building was in disrepair and even claimed the pillars were falling down.
But on Thursday, construction crews started putting up tarps printed to replicate the outside of the White House around the North Portico.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum described the restoration of the North Portico as “all-historic renovation work” that involves restoring the plaster all the way up to the “crowns of those towers.”
By Friday, even the front of the North Portico had been blocked off by a tarp featuring the front of the White House down to the columns, historic wrought iron and glass lantern overhead and front windows lit up.
The move came just days after Trump also confirmed that the White House would be adding a new helipad on the South Lawn to accommodate the new Marine One helicopter used by the president.
For decades, the president would take the helicopter from the grass, but the new VH-92A Patriot helicopters have vents facing downward which were burning up the grass.
Trump said installing the helipad outside the White House was his idea while bragging about how many helipads he has had in his lifetime.
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