Photo by Markus Spiske
“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” US president Donald Trump claimed the day after an armed would-be assassin attempted to charge through a security barricade at the Washington Hilton. “It cannot be built fast enough!”
US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agreed: “America has a problem. That problem is, it is very difficult to have a bunch of important people in the same place unless it is really, really secure.”
I partly agreed with Trump, Graham, and other prominent Republicans at the time: By all means, I wrote, make the White House as secure as possible, and even build a ballroom and other amenities … so long as the other half of the deal is that the president enters the White House grounds immediately upon his or her inauguration and doesn’t leave them for the four years of his or her term in office.
I was sincere in that suggestion, but it turns out Trump was less worried about the whole “security” thing than he and his supporters pretended.
On June 8, less than two months after the Hilton incident, Trump traveled to New York City so that he could grab a nap. At Madison Square Garden. During game three of the National Basketball Association finals. In front of 20,000 screaming fans.
The fans weren’t just screaming for their favorite teams (the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs). They were screaming at – and communicating via hostile hand signals with – Trump himself.
Why all the negativity, b-ball aficionados?
Statistically, any New York crowd will likely lean “anti-Trump” on politics, policy, and personality grounds, but even MAGA diehards had good reason to rage over this particular event … and that reason had a lot to do with my ballroom proposal.
The Secret Service locked down Madison Square Garden, and the surrounding streets, hours before Trump’s arrival.
Public events scheduled for the area were canceled or moved.
People who had already paid outrageous prices to attend – tickets averaged nearly $5,000 each – had to arrive hours earlier than normal so they would have time to stand in line and get screened (read “harassed”) by Secret Service agents before the game.
They eventually got the event they paid to see, but probably didn’t enjoy the last-minute addition of a circus to the schedule.
Then the source of their annoyance fell asleep, right in front of them.
Anyone with the bad luck to have things to do when and where a president or other Very Special Important Politician decides to go (I’ve been through several such incidents myself), or even lives along a presidential motorcade route, knows what a hassle all of that is.
Thus my proposal that presidents spare America such inconveniences while in office through mandatory (if necessary) sequestration on the White House grounds for the durations of their terms.
Trump clearly didn’t believe his own claims concerning presidential security, or he wouldn’t have decided to catch 40 winks in front of thousands of angry basketball fans.
