By Nandita Bose and Joseph Ax
WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - As President Donald Trump's agenda has increasingly encountered resistance, he has turned to a familiar strategy: invoking national security.
Just this weekend, Trump declared that his planned 250-foot triumphal arch near Washington would also serve as a "military complex" to ensure national security, outfitted with snipers, drones and ammunition.
On Monday, Trump wrote on social media that the news outlets he has banned from the White House
— CNN, MS NOW and Politico — represented a "threat to our National Security."
The twin declarations represented the latest efforts in the president's broader campaign to use national security concerns to justify presidential actions in the face of legal roadblocks, political defiance and popular opposition.
During his second term in office, Trump has cited the nation's security to advocate for his planned $400 million White House ballroom; the cancellation of offshore wind farm projects; the dispatching of National Guard troops to Democratic-led US cities; and many of his tariffs on foreign goods. In each case, the security claim was aimed at bolstering presidential authority in the absence of formal congressional approval.
While US presidents have long used national security as a potent legal and political justification, legal experts said Trump is applying it more broadly and frequently than his predecessors, including for issues that have little clear connection to security matters.
The reliance on such claims is no accident, according to a senior White House official with knowledge of the matter, who said the administration sees security justifications as a useful way to strengthen Trump's position when his priorities run into legal challenges.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said expanding national security into an all-purpose defense is “not ideal," but doing so changes “the legal and political terrain of a dispute.”
"It's working," the official said.
In response to a request for comment from the White House, a second senior administration official said it is the president's prerogative as commander-in-chief to protect national security.
The official said the ballroom project includes security enhancements developed with the White House Military Office and Secret Service, and that journalists who solicit classified information and disclose sensitive details can act against US national security interests.
Trump's latest moves coincide with his approval rating hitting the lowest level of his political career at 32%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday. Just 17% of Americans approve of his handling of the cost of living, voters' top concern, and the war in Iran is broadly unpopular.
SERIES OF SETBACKS
In the span of five days last week, the Supreme Court rejected Trump's bid to limit mail ballots; diesel fuel prices hit a new record high; and a federal judge blocked adding his name to the facade of the Kennedy Center, prompting Trump to threaten to cancel planned renovations unless the ruling is overturned.
Trump's argument for the arch appeared to be following the playbook he used for the ballroom, which includes upgrades to an underground bunker at the White House. In both cases, the president pivoted to describing the project as a "military complex" and an urgent security priority only after each was slowed by lawsuits and a lack of support from Congress.
In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said the US military had requested the changes to the planned arch. It would now feature snipers on the roof and plaza as well as drones and "large quantities of sniper ammunition," he said, despite its location on a busy traffic circle less than a mile from the Pentagon.
Critics said the move seemed aimed at countering opposition to the monument.
"He knows aviation safety experts, Veterans and the American people are against building this golden arch — and so naturally, the President wants to exploit our military as a political shield to proceed,” said Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.
The ballroom case, the White House official said, showed that adding a security dimension can deter courts from intervening, after the administration failed to prevail in lower courts on presidential authority alone. The Supreme Court last month allowed construction to proceed, citing in part national security concerns.
The official said the same logic could apply to disputes over press access, noting that courts are more likely to defer to the president in matters of national security rather than a First Amendment dispute.
Courts could become less willing to accept Trump's national security claims if he continues to broaden them, legal experts said.
If an administration strains credulity, that jeopardizes "the traditional deference presidents of the nation have received from the public, from courts, and from allies when invoking national security and doing so in good faith," said James Baker, director of the Syracuse University Institute for Security Policy and Law and a former federal judge.
Courts and Congress have especially given presidents latitude on the issue since the September 11, 2001, attacks, said Elizabeth Goitein, an expert on national security at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.
But it becomes "a hard sell" when Trump invokes security concerns on matters with little obvious nexus, such as the arch, she said.
Framing negative White House media coverage as a security issue, she added, was "so transparent" that "I can imagine it backfiring."
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman)
