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WASHINGTON — <\/span>President Donald Trump’s AI-fueled vision for a drone port<\/a> he intends to install atop the new White House ballroom<\/a> includes missile-bearing unmanned aerial vehicles and gun-toting troops, ostensibly to protect the 18-acre complex and the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n A few hundred feet away, a drone port, run by the U.S. Secret Service and not the military, is already quietly operational. Equipped with cameras and sensors to scope out potential threats from a bird\u2019s-eye view, the small UAVs<\/a> stand on alert in four gray weatherproof boxes until deployed at officers’ commands.<\/p>\n The agency is using a model known as \u201cdrone as first responder,\u201d deploying speedy unarmed drones from outdoor stations to serve as flying cameras. That model has been adopted by hundreds of police agencies across the U.S., often powered by AI software to help dodge obstacles or track targets.<\/p>\n The existence of the surveillance drones on a Treasury Department building adjacent to the White House complex has not been previously reported, and could undercut Trump’s legal claims that the ballroom construction is necessary \u201cto protect the White House and surrounding region from aerial attacks.\u201d The need for the drone port underpinned Trump’s national security defense for the construction project \u2014 a justification he is now citing for the construction of a massive arch outside the gates of Arlington National Cemetery. <\/p>\n The installation is thus far markedly less imposing than the vision outlined by Trump, with its rows of futuristic attack drones, apparently modeled after those used in U.S. military strikes<\/a>, that drone experts describe as outlandish. <\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, if a drone was so close to the White House that it needed interdiction, it\u2019s already gotten too far,\u201d said Matt Sloane, co-founder of SkyfireAI, which makes software for drones used by public safety agencies.<\/p>\n It would be more realistic for the White House to build something akin to what the Secret Service<\/a> is using next door, Sloane said: \u201cThe drone takes off and does some type of perimeter sweep or whatever, and then puts itself back in the box.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not comment for the story. The Secret Service declined to comment on the specifics of its drone operations but said the new docks are separate from Trump’s ballroom drone port.<\/p>\n Security of the president and the White House complex is generally the domain of the Secret Service, which works in close concert with the White House Military Office and other military elements when needed.<\/p>\n Trump has said the drone port came at the request of U.S. military officials. Speaking to reporters in May, he said the building\u2019s plans were expanded to meet the request: \u201cThey wanted more drone capacity,\u201d he said. On social media, he boasted that the drone port might end up being the \u201cmost sophisticated\u201d in the world.<\/p>\n What Trump is ultimately aiming to build, and how far it goes beyond what has already been installed, remains unclear. Beyond Trump\u2019s AI images, some of which he filed in his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to lift lower courts’ blocks on the construction, the White House has not disclosed what kinds of drones will be used or for what tactical purpose. <\/p>\n The Secret Service is using smaller surveillance drones that are a fraction of the size of the attack drones depicted in Trump\u2019s AI images. The U.S. Air Force bought similar drones from Skydio in April to protect bases across the Middle East. The company also supplied drones to help protect World Cup<\/a> matches this year.<\/p>\n The Secret Service has been building out its drone- and counter-drone programs for years. But work has accelerated since the 2024 attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when the agency failed both to take action against a drone used by the shooter to scout out the attack and to fly one of its own to provide overwatch of the event. <\/p>\n In the weeks that followed, tethered and untethered surveillance drones became commonplace at campaign rallies and large events at the White House complex.<\/p>\n In an online video released by the agency highlighting their deployment, the Secret Service said the Skydio drones are used to provide \u201creal-time situational awareness\u201d and \u201caerial overwatch.”<\/p>\n \u201cIt allows you to see the threat before it becomes an issue, and to task assets accordingly,\u201d Dustin Talbott, of the Secret Service\u2019s Aviation and Airspace Security Division, said in the video. \u201cWe no longer wait for the threat to reveal itself. We find it first.\u201d<\/p>\n Skydio did not provide comment for this story.<\/p>\n Trump has made it a priority to build a stronger drone presence around the White House, responding to an increase in political violence<\/a> and the evolution of drone warfare<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paul Eckloff, a former supervisor of the Secret Service\u2019s presidential protection division, said the Russia-Ukraine war has highlighted the risks posed by drones, even off-the-shelf models that can cause massive damage. Drones now represent one of the largest emerging threats the White House must defend against, he said.<\/p>\n During Trump\u2019s first term, conversations about drones often centered on their use in places like Iraq and Syria, said Javed Ali, who served on the National Security Council during that time and now teaches national security at the University of Michigan. Since then, it has become a matter of domestic security, he said.<\/p>\n Yet there would be major logistical hurdles involved in putting a busy drone port on top of the White House, he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole host of questions, like who is responsible for overseeing it, and how would there be any de-confliction with commercial airspace?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Complexities around federal oversight were laid bare this year when the U.S. military used a laser to shoot down a drone<\/a> near El Paso, Texas, only to find it belonged to Customs and Border Protection. The mishap briefly led the FAA to close nearby airspace.<\/p>\n A drone hub at the White House would navigate crowded and complex airspace<\/a> around Washington, not far from Reagan Washington National Airport and flight paths shared by other military aircraft.<\/p>\n Trump started talking about the drone port in May, weeks after a federal judge halted ballroom construction<\/a> but allowed work on security components to continue. Trump later went on to refer to the ballroom as a \u201cmilitary complex,\u201d leaning on that security role as a legal justification.<\/p>\n