A historian flagged President Donald Trump’s obsession with his White House ballroom and what its underground bunker reveals.
During an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, authoritarian expert and historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat spoke about Trump’s fear and paranoia, which she argues is revealed by his plans for a bunker under his White House ballroom.
“The secret of strongmen is that they live in fear, and this is why they build their bunkers,” Ben-Ghiat said. “And Trump’s always talking about not only the ballroom where people can adulate him, and he can get money, but the bunker underneath. That’s his safe space.”
Ben-Ghiat suggested that Trump “is always worried about being hunted.” Recalling comments after the Supreme Leader of Iran was killed, Ben-Ghiat said that Trump remarked, “I got him before he could get me.” She added, “The hunt or be hunted is the mentality of the strongman.”
Host Joanna Coles noted, “To be fair, Donald Trump has had several attempts on his life,” and pointed to the incident in Butler, Pennsylvania. More recently, the White House Correspondents Dinner was disrupted by an alleged assassination attempt against Trump.
According to Ben-Ghiat, strongman-type leaders often face multiple attempts on their lives. She said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has faced about six or seven assassination attempts, but many autocrats try to hide news of their assassination attempts if they can because “they don’t want that to be spread.”
She lumped Trump and Putin into a group that “are interested in self-preservation more generally” and said it’s also seen in how they build an “inner sanctum around themselves, which are full of sycophants, family members.”