President Donald Trump said Sunday that the triumphal arch he wants to build in the traffic circle between Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery will double as a “top grade military complex” — an idea that drew immediate criticism and skepticism from analysts and a Northern Virginia lawmaker.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that he agreed to convert the planned 250-foot-tall arch into an outpost for drones, snipers, and ammunition storage “at the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes.”
The Pentagon said it had no information beyond the president’s statement, and WTOP National Security Correspondent J.J. Green said Trump’s post has the hallmarks of an idea and little more, because the U.S. military and intelligence agencies would not want such a use to be public knowledge.
“That just leaves me to think, based on how this president rolls or engages, this is more about seeing what people think, what people say, how people react, and another thing for him to comment on,” Green said.
Then, there are the practical challenges of making the arch a security outpost.
“Storing ammunition in a heavily visited national monument creates force protection, access control, and explosive safety questions,” Green said. “Operating large numbers of drones also presents an unusually complicated airspace problem. Washington lies inside some of America’s most restrictive airspace.”
“This is something that could take years to get approved, even if it were feasibly possible from an environmental, a legal, and from other perspectives,” Green added.
Virginia Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat who represents the area in Congress, raised the airspace issue in a post on X.
“Putting a drone launching site directly in the landing path for DCA is a stupid, dangerous, and unworkable idea,” Beyer wrote. “Trump clearly expects to lose a lawsuit and therefore wants to set up a pretext to argue that the arch is tied to national security. Which is obviously idiotic.”
A group of three veterans and an architectural historian is suing to stop the project, saying it needs to be approved by Congress.
“The President’s belated efforts to manufacture a national security justification for this project do nothing to cure its fundamental illegality,” Nicolas Sansone, one of the attorneys representing the litigants, told The Associated Press. “Congress has not authorized the arch and unless and until Congress does so, the project should not be permitted to move forward.”
Trump has also referred to his White House ballroom as a “military complex,” and Sunday’s post might be “another card he is playing” to win approval and funding for the arch, Joe Moreno, a former federal prosecutor and a two-time U.S. Army combat veteran, said.
“Congress does give the commander-in-chief a lot of discretion in terms of how he or she spends appropriated funds for the military,” Moreno told WTOP.
He also said he has no doubt that the Army Corps of Engineers would “bless something like this” due to the site’s proximity to the White House and the Pentagon.
“But, the argument that the military is actively requesting this as some kind of an asset for strategic value? Color me skeptical,” Moreno said.
WTOP’s Sandy Kozel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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