A model of President Donald Trump's proposed triumphal arch during The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., June 27, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer
President Donald Trump's decoration projects rely heavily on congressional approval for funding, but that appears to be coming to an end.
While Trump claimed he would fully fund his ballroom project through donations, he has failed to secure the financing and has begged Congress for the cash, saying the ballroom is now a military center. The next move is to do the same with an arch, and Politico reported that at least one Republican isn't buying it.
The 25-story arch with a flame atop it will stand between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, blocking the view of the soldiers buried there.
While the arch was once supposed to have an "observation deck," it will now become a "military complex" with "snipers and drones," the president said over the weekend.
The White House ballroom that Trump claims will also be a military complex with a drone pad atop the room is less than four miles from where the arch will be built. The Pentagon and Fort Myer are even closer, and both are protected by a multi-layered air defense network covering the National Capital region. The network involves a national advanced surface-to-air missile system, quick-response helicopters and jets and even short-range mobile air defense systems, according to a 2002 press release about the new defenses in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson isn't keen on the idea.
“There’s a lot of things that we need the military funding for — in fact, we’re short on military funding right now,” Simpson told reporters while at the Capitol on Monday.
“If it was my choice, I wouldn’t put any of that money into the arch,” Simpson said.
When he was asked whether Pentagon funds should be funneled into the project, he said it's "something that needs to be debated." However, he added, there are other DoD projects that should take priority.
“I hope if they decide to do it, that they would come to Congress and ask for an appropriation for it if they’re going to use appropriated dollars to do it,” Simpson said.
Trump has come up with a way to spend funds at the Pentagon that were not allocated by Congress through a special memo from the general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. The memo claims that, thanks to the "Defense Production Act and annual defense legislation from 2017," and Article II of the Constitution, Trump, not Congress, has the ultimate authority on all military spending.