President Donald Trump wants his proposed "triumphal arch" near Arlington National Cemetery to serve as a "top grade military complex" complete with snipers and drone storage. The plan is drawing sharp pushback from Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), a U.S. Army veteran who lost both of her legs during the Iraq War.

In a strongly worded letter dated Friday, September 25, the 58-year-old senator urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford to scrap the project, writing, "The FAA and DoD (U.S. Department of Defense) must reject this foolhardy plan and instead focus on increasing the safety of the airspace."

According to CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave, who exclusively obtained the letter, the FAA determined last week that the 250-foot arch, which is being constructed near Arlington National Cemetery and would rise roughly as high as a 25-story building, poses no hazard to flights coming into and departing from Reagan Airport. That finding, though, addresses only the arch's physical footprint, not Trump's stated plans to station snipers on the structure and fly drones in what Duckworth calls already congested airspace. In the letter, Duckworth called Trump's announcement — made in a Truth Social post over the weekend — "bizarre, unhinged early morning social media rants."

The arch is among the many proposed makeover projects Trump has been pursuing in the Washington, DC area. His other proposals range from a lavish White House ballroom to renovations at the Kennedy Center.

Van Cleave reported that in Friday's letter, Duckworth, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation — the panel with oversight of federal aviation policy — took Trump administration officials to task for "wasting time, energy and taxpayer dollars on yet another Trump vanity project." She called the plan "particularly outrageous" given what she described as the "joint failure" of the FAA and the Defense Department "to effectively implement corrective actions that were recommended" by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) following the January 2025 midair collision near Reagan Airport that killed 67 people.

The NTSB issued 52 safety recommendations following the collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet that was landing at Reagan Airport — the corrective measures Duckworth says the agencies have failed to effectively carry out. Whether Hegseth and Bedford act on her request is now the immediate question hanging over the project.

Duckworth did not hold back in her message to Hegseth and Bedford, writing, "It is disturbing to see Federal officials devote enormous attention to an unnecessary, proposed structure while the NTSB and the public are still demanding action on recommendations intended to prevent another catastrophic collision in our skies. The American people cannot afford to stand witness to Trump's risky plan to place a 250-foot structure along a busy approach path, especially if he follows through on plans to station snipers on the arch and fly drones ... in the already congested airspace."