Trump Demands Snipers and Drones Atop His 250ft Arch

President Donald Trump said on Sunday, Sept. 20, that the 250-foot triumphal arch he wants built at Memorial Circle, the traffic island at the Virginia end of Arlington Memorial Bridge, will also operate as a military facility stocked with drones, snipers and ammunition.

Writing on Truth Social, he said he had agreed to convert the monument "into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch." The announcement came two days after the Federal Aviation Administration determined the structure would not be a hazard to aircraft, and while the project is being fought in federal court.

The change came at the "strong request" of the U.S. military and was required for national security, Trump wrote. He did not name the officials or service branches that made the request, and he provided no evidence that a formal request exists, Newsweek reported. A Pentagon official referred the outlet to the president's post and offered no other comment.

What the Truth Social post actually said

Trump said the arch near the National Mall would "house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage."

He closed with a comparison to other capitals. "There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World. Out of the 59 top cities and Capitals, Washington, D.C., IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT HAVE A TRIUMPHAL ARCH, but it will now and, by far, the greatest of them all!" he wrote. The post named no cost, no operator for the drones or sniper posts, and no timeline for the military buildout.

A traffic island between two shrines

Memorial Circle sits inside Lady Bird Johnson Park, built between 1915 and 1930 and renamed in 1968 for First Lady Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson. The Lincoln Memorial stands directly across the Potomac. Behind the circle is Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 400,000 service members, veterans and family members are buried.

The arch would be more than twice the height of the 99-foot Lincoln Memorial and nearly 90 feet taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the monument it was modeled on. The main structure is about 165 feet; a pedestal, a winged Lady Liberty figure and two gilded eagles carry it to 250. Plans call for gold accents and the inscriptions "One Nation Under God" and "Liberty and Justice for All"; four golden lions at the base were in the April concept and were cut in May. It was designed by Nicolas Leo Charbonneau, a director at Harrison Design, and a White House official has said a mix of taxpayer and private money is expected to pay for it. The administration has pitched it as a commemoration of the country's 250th birthday. Trump showed three scaled models to White House ballroom donors at a dinner in October 2025, and the proposal has been contested ever since.

The filed plans describe galleries, not gun positions

Public planning documents describe a roughly 250-foot granite-clad structure with a plaza and landscaping work, utilities, traffic modifications, lighting and security features. Earlier descriptions of the interior included galleries and an open-air observation deck.

Nothing in the published project description mentions drones, sniper positions or ammunition storage, Newsweek reported, leaving it unclear whether Trump's announcement would force the design and its federal reviews to be rewritten. The weapons plan also raises questions about public access to a monument that was pitched as a visitor attraction.

Three Vietnam veterans and a law from 1925

Michael Lemmon, Shaun Byrnes and Jon Gundersen, all Vietnam veterans, sued in February alongside architectural historian Calder Loth to stop construction. They argue the arch would obstruct the visual alignment between the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge and Arlington House, an alignment created more than a century ago to symbolize the reunion of North and South after the Civil War. They also argue the project violates the Commemorative Works Act and cannot be built without approval from Congress. Byrnes has said he would reconsider burial at Arlington if the arch is built.

The administration's legal footing is a 1925 congressional authorization for a pair of 166-foot columns at the same site. Those columns were never built. Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group representing the plaintiffs, told Fox News Digital that "Congress's authorization to have a particular project built at a particular time subject to a specific price cap by a now-disbanded commission can't reasonably be relied on to authorize a totally different independent project that's going to cost way more money centuries into the future." He told The Associated Press separately that the project "will have an enormous impact and transform the National Mall."

A judge ordered 48 hours' notice

On Sept. 4, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the government to give the court 48 hours' notice before moving forward with any activity on Memorial Circle other than archaeological survey work. The order warned that construction or demolition before the National Park Service issues final authorization would violate the court.

That order landed a day after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote on X on Sept. 3 that the administration planned to begin excavation within two weeks, even though the National Capital Planning Commission and other federal reviews had not finished.

The Park Service wrote down the damage itself

A 133-page National Park Service report acknowledged the arch will have "adverse effects on historic properties" and will break the symbolic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge and Arlington House. The report listed the National Mall, U.S. Capitol, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Georgetown Historic District, the Old Naval Observatory, Key Bridge and the National Cathedral among the sites whose visual setting would be affected.

The agency concluded the location was "historically appropriate" anyway. In a planning document, the Park Service wrote that the adverse effects "cannot be fully avoided while retaining the location-dependent purpose of the undertaking," and that it "recognizes that Memorial Circle is located within a highly sensitive historic and commemorative landscape, and that the Undertaking's location contributes to adverse effects to historic properties." More than 100,000 people submitted comments during Park Service review periods in June and July.

The FAA said yes, but wants an eternal flame on top

The FAA announced on September 18 that the arch would not pose a hazard to aircraft, with strings attached. "The FAA's determination includes conditions for the Arch to be appropriately marked with a non-standard eternal flame on top of the structure and floodlight projectors pointed towards the Arch to make it noticeable for pilots," the agency said.

The site is just under two miles northwest of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, along what CBS News calls the airport's most heavily used flight path. Interested parties have until October 18 to file a petition for review, and the determination is not final until October 28, 2026. Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the top Democrat on the Senate aviation subcommittee, had urged the agency to reject the project, calling it "wasteful and dangerous" in a June 18 letter that cited the January 2025 collision near Washington in which an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter killed 67 people.

Beyer calls it a pretext

Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, whose district takes in Arlington National Cemetery and Reagan National Airport, wrote on X: "Putting a drone launching site directly in the landing path for DCA is a stupid, dangerous, and unworkable idea. 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."

Chuck Todd, who was NBC News political director until he left the network in January 2025, questioned the wisdom of publicizing the location of a weapons cache. "If this is actually something being considered, seems weird to broadcast to the world where they can find a stash of weapons to target in DC," he wrote on social media, calling it an effort to wrap the arch into national defense.

The ballroom got the same treatment

Trump has used a national security framing on a White House project before. He told reporters aboard Air Force One in March that "the military is building a massive complex under the ballroom," and in an August Supreme Court filing said the ballroom was required to build a "highly integrated military complex that incorporates a classical, but highly secured, ballroom and crucial national-security facilities." He described the building as sitting over that structure, with drone-proofing, bulletproof glass and hardened materials. Critics have said the framing is meant to reclassify the project as security infrastructure and ease it through the planning process.

The arch is one of several Washington projects Trump has pursued in his second term, along with the ballroom, renovations at the Kennedy Center, refurbishment of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and redevelopment of a golf course at East Potomac Park.

Who still has to sign off

The National Capital Planning Commission must grant full permission before construction can begin. It gave preliminary approval in July and is led by Trump appointees. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved the concept on April 16 and the final design on May 21, months after Trump fired its sitting members in October 2025 and installed his own appointees in January.

The Park Service has issued a finding that the project as previously described would have no significant environmental impact, while stating that the finding is not a final decision or approval. The administration is hoping for that final decision in November, according to The Washington Post.

The Park Service has said building it would involve cranes reaching roughly 300 to 320 feet, working up to 20 hours a day, for two to three years.