Joe Biden spent four years riding a 50-year-old helicopter because his $5 billion replacement scorched the lawn.
Donald Trump fixed it in eight months.
Donald Trump just cut a ribbon on the South Lawn and flew away on the most advanced Marine One in history.
Obama Started It. Biden Inherited It. Neither Fixed It.
The United States Marine Corps has 23 brand-new VH-92A Patriot helicopters.
Each one cost $218 million.
The total program bill: nearly $5 billion.
Obama's Pentagon restarted the presidential helicopter replacement program after the original contract collapsed under cost overruns – then handed the unresolved problem to the next guy.
https://twitter.com/HQNewsNow/status/2102096392718020969?s=20
Biden accepted delivery of the final VH-92A in August 2024 and flew one exactly once – to the Democrat National Convention in Chicago – because the helicopter literally could not land at his own house.
The exhaust vents aim straight down.
Every landing scorched the South Lawn grass.
The Marines flagged the problem in 2018.
The Government Accountability Office put it in writing in 2020.
Nobody built a helipad.
Biden demoted the $218 million aircraft to carrying White House staff on paved runways while he rode the same VH-3D Sea King that's been hauling presidents since the Nixon administration.
That is how Washington works.
You spend $5 billion, identify the problem in 2018, get a GAO report in 2020, and in 2024 your president is still dodging the question by flying to his own party's convention.
What Trump Built While Biden Was Writing Reports
The new helipad is black-and-white granite, carved with the presidential seal.
Lockheed Martin – Sikorsky's parent company – covered the construction cost as a private contribution channeled through the National Park Service's nonprofit partner.
Trump told the builders to skip the concrete and do it right.
"You're landing on granite, which is the strongest stone," he said.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/2102133742705758568?s=20
Monday, the president cut the ribbon, climbed the steps, and lifted off toward New York for the UN General Assembly.
In a Truth Social post, Trump credited Jim Taiclet, Lockheed Martin's CEO, for making the contribution happen – and thanked the construction workers and stone masons by name.
“We are just leaving the White House Lawn on the maiden voyage from the newly built, and very beautiful, Heliport! I want to thank Jim Taiclet, CEO of Lockheed Martin, who made this valuable contribution to our Country,” Trump wrote. “Our Government has been thinking about doing this for 25 years, but was never able to get it done.”
The helipad will also serve as an outdoor event space for White House press conferences and ceremonies.
A $5 Billion Fleet That Can Finally Do Its Job
One granite pad – privately funded – just unlocked the full operational capability of a military investment that sat hobbled at the White House for years.
That's the difference between an administration that gets things done and one that writes reports about why it can't.
And Trump wasn't done.
https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/2102095490456203493?s=20
The same administration restored the North Portico columns – stripped of 150 years of accumulated paint – installed 100-foot flagpoles on both lawns, rebuilt the Rose Garden with granite pavers, and broke ground on a 90,000-square-foot ballroom with military security infrastructure underneath.
The five major television networks boycotted Monday's ceremony – refusing to cover it because Trump pulled press credentials from CNN, Politico, and MS NOW last week.
The networks that spent four years lecturing America about the sacred importance of presidential transparency chose to show their viewers nothing rather than show Trump winning.
He flew away on a helicopter they refused to film.
Sources:
- Nick Gilbertson, "Trump Uses White House Helipad for First Time After Ribbon Cutting," Breitbart, September 21, 2026.
- "New White House Helipad Prevents Lawn Damage," Stars and Stripes, July 17, 2026.
- "Biden's New Chopper Demoted After Scorching White House Lawn," Bloomberg/Gulf News, 2024.
- "New Marine One Helicopters the US Spent $5 Billion On Aren't Allowed to Carry the President Because They Could Scorch the Lawn," Business Insider, 2024.
- "Biden Takes Inaugural Flight in Long-Delayed New Marine One Helicopter," Associated Press, August 2024.