Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
Senate Republicans, the Associated Press reports, plan to give the Secret Service $1 billion for “security upgrades” to president Donald Trump’s (supposedly $400 million, supposedly donation-funded) White House ballroom project.
After an assassination attempt outside the Washington Hilton ballroom hosting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April, Republicans began boosting the ballroom itself as a presidential safety solution.
Every time the president ventures forth to environments inhabited or surrounded by the hoi polloi, they point out, the Secret Service has to create bespoke environments within otherwise open facilities to ensure that he’s not shot at, yelled at, glared at, or annoyed. Better to keep him in a facility that’s controlled 24/7 for his safety and convenience.
That’s fair, and it occurs to me that, done rightly, adding a secure ballroom to the White House could benefit not just presidential security but public convenience. My proposal:
Build the ballroom. Make it, and the White House grounds, as secure as humanly possible. If necessary, enlarge the White House grounds (perhaps by incorporating Lafayette Park) to make room for more amenities. We want future presidents to be comfortable, because the other half of the deal is:
On January 20 of the year following his or her election, immediately following the inauguration ceremony, each new president enters the White House grounds, and does not leave until, four years later, he or she leaves for home or to travel over to Capitol Hill for re-inauguration.
Don’t make it a suggestion. Make it a law.
The president would be very safe. Instead of constantly navigating, analyzing, and securing new environments, the Secret Service could focus on a layout they knew like the backs of their hands and could pre-approve and carefully monitor any changes to. No security system is impenetrable, but this one would be a very hard target.
As for the public, we’d no longer be inconvenienced by having the president wander around the country at will and at our expense, disrupting every community he or she visits.
No more airport/airspace closures for Air Force One.
No more roads and streets shut down for presidential motorcades.
No more swarms of Secret Service agents and mobs of other law enforcement agents sealing off golf course, fairgrounds, universities, etc. because The Very Special Important Person is going to be there.
There’s nothing a president HAS to do that requires him or her to leave 1600 Pennsylvania NW and its attached grounds.
The chief executive’s job is to sign or veto bills (which can be done at the Oval Office desk), supervise various departments (whose heads can come to the White House for cabinet meetings, etc.), negotiate treaties (such negotiations are usually handled by envoys, but other heads of state, etc. could visit the White House as necessary), and occasionally report to Congress on the “State of the Union” (which can be, and for many years was, done via written report rather than by personal visit to a joint session of Congress).
Safer president, less public inconvenience, and much cheaper. It’s a win-win.
