Trump inaugurates new White House helipad, but networks skip coverage
during First Amendment fight
[September 22, 2026]
By WILL WEISSERT and SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump showed off his new White House
helicopter landing pad on Monday, attempting to brush aside a First
Amendment firestorm even as major television networks kept their cameras
away in protest of CNN being banned from the grounds.
A light drizzle fell on the South Lawn as Trump used oversized gold
scissors to cut a red, white and blue ribbon. He then exchanged
handshakes with officials and some members of a construction crew
wearing green smocks and hard hats — seeking to portray business as
usual.
If he had words to mark the occasion, however, it was impossible to hear
them over the noise of his waiting helicopter. Normally, TV network
crews work to capture clearer audio.
Trump didn't answer reporters' shouted questions before climbing aboard
Marine One on his way to New York. Instead, he wrote on his social media
site, “We are just leaving the White House Lawn on the maiden voyage
from the newly built, and very beautiful, Heliport!”
MS Now, Politico and CNN have sued after Trump announced Friday that he
was banning them from covering the White House in a clear escalation of
Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative
action — to restrict news coverage he finds objectionable.
CNN normally participates in a five-network rotation that provides
pooled footage of daily events at the White House. When the network was
barred from taking its assigned turn on Monday, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox
News agreed collectively to the extraordinary step of skipping Trump's
helipad ceremony.
Trump has long crowed about how the new helipad — featuring extensive
granite that he boasts will have a “million-year life,” as well as a
large insignia reading the “Seal of the President of the United States”
— would impress Chinese President Xi Jinping, who arrives Wednesday for
a state visit.
He's been focused on wowing Xi even as he decried Democrats as
communists in an attempt to help Republicans retain control of Congress
in upcoming midterm elections. But his effort to curb access for media
outlets to the White House has overshadowed Trump's pet building
projects and Xi's visit.
Igniting constitutional questions over media access also eclipsed the
reason Trump was lifting off from the helipad — the annual trip to
attend the United Nations General Assembly beginning on Tuesday.
Speaking later to reporters in New York after meeting with the city's
mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Trump tried again to shrug off the lack of
network TV coverage of his movements.
“It’s interesting because they said they were gonna boycott me. But they
never boycott me,” the president said, before adding, “I think that
these outlets have an obligation to be fair.”
Whether Trump’s work will be long-lasting is unclear
The president has spent large swaths of his second term focused on
building projects even as his administration struggles to find a way out
of the ongoing war in Iran. Trump's approval ratings have sunk with only
about six weeks before Election Day, where voters are increasingly
worried about inflation and a potentially weakening economy.
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President Donald Trump steps off from Marine One upon his arrival at
the Ellipse just outside of the White House, Saturday, Sept. 19,
2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
His successor in the Oval Office could move to undo much of his
renovation work at the White House. And, in line with Trump's
assertions that the new helipad granite could last a million years,
the president has made other grand pronouncements about his prowess
with renovation projects that quickly fell flat.
He said the refurbishing of the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool
would last a century, only for the paint to fade and its liner to
peel away in chunks just days after it was laid.
The helipad work began in June. Trump also ripped out the original
Tennessee flagstone along the West Wing’s colonnade and replaced it
with black granite. He similarly refurbished the traditional walkway
from the White House’s diplomatic entrance with white granite, along
with a portion of the asphalt driveway around the South Lawn.
Trump rushed to finish the project before Xi arrives and has argued
that visiting dignitaries will be dazzled by the project — despite
Marine One being the only aircraft that lands so close to the White
House.
The president says the improvement was required since Vietnam
War-era choppers that long had been used as Marine One are being
replaced by modern ones that are too powerful to land on the White
House lawn without damaging the lawn's grass. Trump has spent months
repeatedly talking about grass as a way to promote his various
building plans, even though many of the construction projects
required ripping up turf.
Trump said in July that the helipad project would be privately
funded and estimated its cost at up to $6 million. Additional
changes, including extensive efforts to level the ground around the
helipad, have made calculating the exact expenditure difficult.
Trump relishes the role of builder-in-chief
The once storied South Lawn has become a major construction site
this year. In June, Trump erected a fighting cage and temporary
arena for a UFC fight marking his 80th birthday. Then, crews got
down to work on the helipad.
Trump says Sikorsky Aircraft — a subsidiary of defense contracting
giant Lockheed Martin — would be paying for the helipad, since the
company made the newer, larger helicopters. In his online post,
Trump thanked Lockheed Martin's CEO.
Some of Trump’s projects have relied on public money, even when the
president initially suggested otherwise.
When crews originally demolished the White House’s East Wing to make
room for Trump’s $400 million ballroom, the president said it would
be paid for by private donors. But his administration later sought
$1 billion from Congress to make security improvements to the
structure.
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