President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Sunday that he had agreed to convert the planned Triumphal Arch at Memorial Circle into what he called a “top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch.”
The change, he said, came at the “strong request of the United States Military” and was undertaken “for National Security purposes.”
According to Trump, the structure would “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones,” with snipers stationed “on both the roof and plaza areas,” and would hold “large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”
President Trump says he is going to have the new Triumphal Arch to a massive drone port for D.C. military defense.
— J (@JayTC53) September 20, 2026
"Triumphal Arch, to 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… pic.twitter.com/mSsOIVnhHH
No military branch, officer or written request has been publicly identified.
Trump’s statement concerns a project that already had a published design before Sunday. Roughly 250 feet tall, the arch has been planned for Memorial Circle on Columbia Island as a granite-clad structure.
Topped by a gilded winged figure known in official presentations as Lady Liberty, or Winged Liberty, and flanked by two gilded eagles, the arch was reviewed by the Commission of Fine Arts.
Across the entablature, gold inscriptions read “ONE NATION UNDER GOD” on one face and “LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL” on the opposite face.
Inside the traffic circle, the design includes a paved plaza, an observation deck and visitor and circulation facilities, including stairways and elevators serving the interior levels. No weapons storage, sniper positions or drone facilities appear in that design.
The arch sits on the axis between Arlington Memorial Bridge and Memorial Avenue, with the Lincoln Memorial to the east and Arlington National Cemetery to the west.
The granite arch itself stands about 166 feet, with the gilded statue bringing the total to roughly 250 feet.
In his post, Trump described the arch as “planned since the Civil War Era many years ago” and said he had agreed to convert it “into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to 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.”
“There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World,” he added. Washington, he said, is currently the only capital among “the 59 top cities and Capitals” without a triumphal arch — “it will now and, by far, the greatest of them all!”
The Commission of Fine Arts review covers the arch’s granite construction, gilded statuary, inscriptions, plaza and observation deck. That review does not cover weapons storage, sniper firing positions or facilities to house drones.
Beyond Trump’s own statement that it came at the ‘strong request of the United States Military,’ no basis for a military role in the redesign has been established
The project’s publicly announced construction timetable predates Trump’s Sunday statement. On September 3, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum declared the government was “preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck” at Memorial Circle, after what he called “a very long wait (over 125 years!).”
That construction plan is expected to run roughly two to three years.
Government counsel later told a court that the activity beginning in September consisted of archaeological test pits and information-gathering required under historic-preservation law, not construction of the monument itself.
The arch is planned as an occupied public building rather than a solid ceremonial gate, with roughly 70,000 gross square feet across five levels, including ground-floor security screening and ticketing, service mezzanines, an exhibit gallery and an exterior observation deck.
Trump’s statement describes the project as a military complex with drone and sniper installations, a description that goes well beyond the granite arch, statuary, plaza and observation deck reviewed and approved by the Commission of Fine Arts.
