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This year\u2019s White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner nearly ended in tragedy<\/a>. About an hour into the event, a 31-year-old attacker ran past the main security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton ballroom, firing shots as he attempted to reach the area where the president and many cabinet officials were seated. While a Secret Service officer got hit in his bullet-proof vest, the agents were fortunately able to apprehend the attacker before anyone else was hurt or worse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A security breach of this magnitude, especially one coming after the previous attempts on Trump\u2019s life<\/a>, naturally draws attention to several issues about the state of the nation. In the din of white noise surrounding the attack, however, one issue seems to have risen to the forefront, pushed by the president, pundits, and right-wing posters alike: Trump\u2019s ballroom must <\/em>be built right now<\/em>!\u00a0<\/p>\n The logic here seems to be that, were a cavernous ballroom available for hosting the WHCD, Trump would have easily been able to disappear into the planned bunker beneath at the first sign of trouble, which would have somehow prevented what happened from happening as it did.\u00a0<\/p>\n This message is every bit as revealing about those pushing it as it is wrong for this moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The ballroom blitz began with the president himself as messenger. From behind the White House press room podium, still clad in his tuxedo from the WHCD, Trump wasted no time in making the case<\/a> to advance his ballroom project, which has been tied up in court since a lawsuit from the National Trust for Historic Preservation halted construction<\/a> last December.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a Truth Social post<\/a> the following morning, he crystallized the urgency of this message, writing: \u201cWhat happened last night is exactly the reason our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear whether Team Trump made direct appeals to right-wing influencers like Libs of Tik Tok and MAGA politicians like Rep. Chip Roy<\/a> to echo the president, or if they arrived at that conclusion on their own. Either way, the message saturation that followed is striking in both its scope and uniformity. By Sunday morning, dozens of high-profile Trump allies<\/a> had posted ballroom demands on their high-follower social media accounts. The average X user bombarded with them could be forgiven for assuming Trump\u2019s ballroom came with a mandate from heaven.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nMessage saturation and discipline<\/h2>\n