Donald Trump Tours White House South Lawn Construction, Shows Renovated Driveway and Helicopter Landing Pad

Helipad and driveway tour

President Donald Trump led reporters on an impromptu tour of White House construction on the South Lawn, showing a renovated driveway and progress on a new helicopter landing pad. CNN reported Trump highlighted his personal investment in the projects, including the placement of stanchions, the radial cut of granite, and the elimination of potholes, before he signed a giant slab of granite that he said would be “flipped” and laid into the helipad. Trump told reporters, “This was always asphalt, which is very basic, not appropriate for a great house — for a great place like the White House,” as he described the driveway as redone with a California-mined white granite.

According to CNN, construction on the landing zone began shortly after his UFC fight in June, but CNN observed the dismantling of the stone weeks later, and Trump said he was unhappy with its slope. Trump said the helipad was now “dead flat,” and he told workers, “Sorry to take an extra week-and-a-half, but lifting it up was one of the best things we’ve ever done.”

Reporting for this sectionCNN

Ballroom push and court fight

Trump’s construction tour also repeatedly returned to his 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which his administration has taken to the Supreme Court as part of a national-security argument involving a state-of-the-art bunker facility underneath.

The New York Times reported that Trump has recruited a team of 250 workers to press on with construction, 20 hours a day, seven days a week, and that court filings said this week plans called for installing 453 tons of rebar and pouring 2,293 cubic meters of concrete.

In court filings, the government said the project was currently two-thirds complete, and the matter is pending before the Supreme Court as Trump’s administration argues it is too far along to stop.

The New York Times quoted Laurence H. Tribe, University Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, warning that the strategy is to “change the reality on the ground so that, instead of preserving the status quo.”

CNN also said the filing put the complex at “65% complete in its entirety,” while Trump told reporters he “can’t imagine it happening” that the nation’s highest court would halt construction.

Reporting for this sectionThe New York TimesCNN

Security details and funding fight

While Trump focused on the South Lawn projects, the Independent described his tour as an unveiling of a new granite helipad on the South Lawn and said he called the hard-hatted workmen “real artists.”

The Independent reported that Trump said the helipad could be completed by the time Chinese president Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for a state visit next month, and it described the helipad as a replacement needed for an unresolved problem with the next-generation helicopters slated for use as Marine One, the VH-92.

The Independent also said the helipad is manufactured by Sikorsky and that Sikorsky decided to pay for a helipad to eliminate the risk to grass from landing on the South Lawn.

In a separate dispute, the Clarín article said documents filed in July in the Thakur v. Trump case described how federal agencies used keyword searches to cancel grants for University of California research programs, and it said the hearing to consider the request is scheduled for October 20.

Clarín reported that the Department of Transportation canceled six grants totaling about $42 million because they were tied to concepts such as “transportation equity,” “disadvantaged communities,” “workforce diversification,” or “equity,” and it said three of those projects led by a UC Davis professor caused the disruption of 79 ongoing investigations.

Reporting for this sectionThe IndependentClarin