Why Trump’s Ballroom Bunker Proves He’s Terrified

President Donald Trump is playing right into the authoritarian playbook with his White House bunker obsession, says the historian Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat.

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Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and autocratic leaders, tells The Daily Beast Podcast that Trump’s $600 million ballroom bunker project is par for the course for a “strongman” who lives in constant fear.

Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, noted that Trump has emphasized the lair’s protective capabilities, including a military hospital, facilities to harbor a “massive drone capacity,” and a hardened roof made of “impenetrable steel.”

“The entire roof is built for military,” Trump, 80, told reporters in May. “Not only is it drone-proof, if a drone hits it, it bounces off, it won’t have any impact. But it’s also meant as a drone port that would protect all of Washington.”

Ben-Ghiat said that the costly project points to a bigger theme with Trump, that “he’s always worried about being hunted.”

“When the Supreme Leader of Iran was… killed, he said, ‘I got him before he could get me,’” she said. “And this—the hunt or be hunted—is the mentality of the strongman.”

Reached for comment, White House spokesman Davis Ingle emailed an attack on Ben-Ghiat.

“Who the hell is Dr. Ben-Ghiat?” he wrote. “President Trump is making the White House and our Nation’s Capital beautiful and giving it the glory it deserves—something everyone can celebrate. Only people who suffer from a severe and crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome would find a problem with that.”

Ben-Ghiat described how these strongmen create an “inner sanctum” around them, composed of family members and sycophants, people she said are constantly subjected to “loyalty tests” and will not ever provide objective feedback to the leader on their actions.

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“They want to be adulated,” she said. “So we’ve all seen the Cabinet meetings where everybody goes round like it’s North Korea and says how great Trump is, and he requires that.”

“Because they get paranoid. And the longer they’re in power, the more paranoid they get,” Ben-Ghiat added. “The more power they amass, the more afraid they are of somebody coming to take it away, or internal plotting, palace coups, this kind of thing.”

The historian explained that because of their sycophantic inner circles, strongmen are unable to course-correct after making poor decisions, often opting to double down instead of fixing their mistakes. And Trump is no different with his tariffs, she noted.

“The more they fear inside that they’re looking like they’re fallible rather than infallible, right? The more they feel they have to do what they want to do,” she explained.

That’s why these types of leaders often turn to war, Ben-Ghiat said, pointing at both Benito Mussolini’s failures during World War II and Vladimir Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine.

In a similar fashion, Trump ventured into a war with Iran, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz, killed 18 U.S. service members, and wounded hundreds more.

“War is something they do when they’re in this zone because they feel they want to prove themselves to history… and then it goes badly,” she said. “And… often, that’s the end of them in various ways. They get outvoted, or they lose power. Create instability around them—as in Russia. And… so, I think that Trump is on that trajectory now.”