Donald Trump is once again using safety as a justification for his White House ballroom.

Following the shooting outside the White House on Saturday, May 23, the president, 79, shared a renewed call to finish his much-discussed ballroom, which will be located where the torn-down East Wing once stood.

The shooter — identified as 21-year-old Nasire Best by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)— allegedly approached the White House complex and fired several shots, striking two people, before Secret Service agents shot him. President Donald Trump was in the building at the time, “but was not impacted” by the shooting, a Secret Service spokesperson confirmed to CBS News.

Following the Washington, D.C., shooting, Trump — who has recently claimed that the military is pushing for the construction of the ballroom “more than anybody” — said in a Truth Social post recapping the incident that national security “demands” his temporarily stalled White House addition be built.

“Thank you to our great Secret Service and Law Enforcement for the swift and professional action taken this evening against a gunman near the White House, who had a violent history and possible obsession with our Country’s most cherished structure,” wrote Trump. “The gunman is dead after an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service Agents near the White House gates.”

He continued, “This event is one month removed from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C. The National Security of our Country demands it!”

The president also demanded the White House ballroom project — which began when the East Wing was demolished in October 2025 — be completed following the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton hotel in April. He repeatedly made his case that the White House desperately needs a new ballroom in the immediate aftermath of the Saturday, April 25, shooting.

Earlier this month, Trump repeated the same claim while stating that the 90,000-square-foot, $400 million project — double what he originally said the ballroom would cost — will be “the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world” and “very safe.”

“You’ll never see anything like it. And it’ll also be very safe. It’s going to be a very safe ballroom,” he said during an address at his second Rose Garden Club dinner on May 11, adding that the glass will be “like six inches thick.”

“You look through it, and you can see as perfectly as though it weren’t there. Now how’d they do that? I don’t know, but it’s at the highest level of safety, and you won’t have a situation as you had two weeks ago on Saturday night,” he continued, seemingly referring to the dinner shooting, which he was present for, on April 25.

Along with Trump, Senate Republicans are serious about approving an additional $1 billion in security funding for the president’s passion project while it is held up by litigation. Trump has repeatedly insisted would be funded by private donations from himself and major corporations.

The politicians ran into a procedural roadblock as they tried to pass a $72 billion funding package for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection and other agencies.