AFP through Getty Pictures/Collage by Emily Bogle/NPR
President Trump has spent a lot of his second time period attempting to make his bodily mark on Washington, D.C., incomes — or maybe awarding himself — the moniker of “builder-in-chief.”
“The very best factor I do in life is construct,” he instructed reporters in Might.
Trump tore down the East Wing of the White Home to construct a fair greater ballroom (and navy complicated beneath). He constructed a helipad on the South Garden after individually paving over the Rose Backyard. He had the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool repaved in “American flag blue,” a venture that was imagined to take two weeks however remains to be unfinished many months later, after a botched set up and several other unfounded arrests.
He is had new statues put in and present ones restored, together with two equestrian statues manifestly gilded over the summer season. He desires to construct a sculpture backyard of “nationwide heroes” in West Potomac Park and overhaul the domestically beloved East Potomac Golf Hyperlinks, altering it from a municipal useful resource right into a championship-level venue.
The record goes on. Trump seeks so as to add his identify to the Kennedy Heart constructing, or else have it demolished altogether. He is attempting to fast-track a controversial 250-foot arch close to Arlington Nationwide Cemetery, most just lately rebranding it as a navy complicated — regardless of initially telling reporters it was supposed to honor “me.”
“I’ve heard the president say: ‘I’m president as a result of I’m wealthy. I’m wealthy as a result of I’m a developer. I’m a developer as a result of I’ve beautiful style,'” mentioned Greg Werkheiser, whose regulation agency, Cultural Heritage Companions, is concerned in a number of lawsuits towards Trump’s tasks. “It will seem that a lot of his self-worth is tied to this mythology of Trump as a builder.”
White Home spokesperson Davis Ingle instructed NPR in a press release that “President Trump can stroll and chew gum on the similar time,” saying he’s delivering on marketing campaign coverage guarantees whereas additionally “making certain the Individuals’s Home and our Nation’s Capital will likely be correctly glorified and stay in glorious situation for generations to return.”
“Because of the Builder-in-Chief, no different president has completed extra to beautify our Nation’s inside than President Trump,” he added.
Aspect-by-side building of a brand new helipad on the South Garden of the White Home and the East Wing ballroom, as seen in late August.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures
conceal caption
toggle caption
Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures
Trump’s second-term tasks have prompted lawsuits, protests and tens of 1000’s of public feedback overwhelmingly in opposition. Whereas a few of these undertakings are pegged to the nation’s 250th anniversary, critics have lengthy accused the president of speeding to memorialize himself out of worry that nobody else will. And Trump confirmed as a lot in a New York Journal piece printed earlier this month.
“No person will do it as soon as I am gone,” mentioned the 80-year-old, second-term president. “After I go away right here, no one will.”
Trump and people in his orbit keep he’s uniquely certified to place his stamp on D.C. due to his decades-long profession as a New York Metropolis actual property developer. Then-White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt instructed Fox Information final yr that “largely, he was reelected … as a result of he’s good at constructing issues.”
However individuals who labored with him on the time level out that his early-career constructing tasks and techniques have been fraught too, boosted by monetary workarounds and stricken by lawsuits. And, extra broadly, historians and authorized specialists fear that Trump is setting a harmful precedent by treating D.C. as his private building playground.
“The more severe his approval scores, the financial system and the warfare get, the extra time he spends within the sandbox taking part in with America’s historic websites as in the event that they have been his private toys,” Werkheiser mentioned.
Barbara Res, who served as head of building for the Trump Group within the Eighties, says Trump’s efforts to chop corners with formidable tasks are usually not new, however tackle a painful significance in a second when he’s “ripping by” the nation’s capital.
“There was no regard for the regulation again then. However he wasn’t the king of the world; he wasn’t the president,” Res mentioned. “Now he has no regard for regulation … and he will get away with it.”
A historical past of disregard for historic preservationÂ
Trump, pictured in 1985, shows an artist’s idea of “Tv Metropolis,” a proposed actual property improvement on Manhattan’s Higher West Aspect that was finally by no means constructed partly because of neighborhood opposition.
Marty Lederhandler/AP
conceal caption
toggle caption
Marty Lederhandler/AP
Res, who left the Trump Group in 1998, pressured that there’s a massive distinction between a builder and a developer.
Trump was the latter, overseeing big-picture selections like hiring architects, engineers and contractors. Even so, she mentioned he typically made calls for about particulars that often made the job more durable, equivalent to telling crews to reuse previous HVAC tools in new ductwork as a cost-cutting measure.
“His father was a builder in Brooklyn … and Donald appears to assume that provides him credibility as a builder, ‘trigger he walked round along with his father,” she mentioned. “Perhaps he does now, however after we have been doing the work, he did not actually know a lot about building.”
Res is an outspoken Trump critic: in 2020, she printed the guide Tower of Lies: What My 18 Years of Working with Donald Trump Reveals About Him. She concedes that “he did do good issues” for actual property, however that was earlier than he was president.
“The White Home and the capital are to not his credit score, so I do not assume that may be a part of his legacy,” she mentioned. “Most likely his most necessary constructing is Trump Tower.”
Trump Tower was Trump’s second main impartial venture, and his first built-from-scratch skyscraper. And it was marred by a historic preservation scandal earlier than it even opened.
In 1979, Trump — then a budding developer in his early 30s — purchased the flagship constructing of the Bonwit Teller luxurious division on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, with plans to tear it down and construct Trump Tower as an alternative.
Penelope Hunter-Stiebel was a curator on the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork on the time. When she heard of Trump’s plan to demolish the 1929 constructing, she jumped into motion to avoid wasting the historic art work on its facade: two classical-style 15-feet-high limestone sculptures of nudes dancing with scarves, and a large artwork deco ornamental steel grille.
The Bonwit Teller Division retailer in New York Metropolis, with its art-deco sculptures framing the highest row of home windows earlier than the balcony.
AP/AP
conceal caption
toggle caption
AP/AP
Hunter-Stiebel believed the sharp distinction of two totally different architectural types — added to the identical constructing within the span of a single yr — would make for an important addition to the Met’s assortment. And he or she thought Trump may benefit, too.
“We had been chasing wrecking balls as buildings of architectural decoration that have been vital have been destroyed round New York,” she mentioned. “I believed on this case, wanting up Trump, it was an opportunity of adjusting the path.”
Hunter-Stiebel approached the Trump Group with a suggestion: “Younger Donald,” as he was known as, couldn’t solely get some optimistic PR for salvaging the art work, however he may possible additionally get a tax deduction.
She mentioned Robert Miller, who owned the gallery throughout the road, had agreed to appraise the works and valued them at round $200,000. He instructed The New York Occasions in 1980: “The reliefs are as necessary because the sculptures on the Rockefeller constructing. They will by no means be made once more.”
Hunter-Stiebel says she reached an settlement with the Trump Group. However shortly after scaffolding and demolition crews arrived within the spring of 1980, she seen the steel grille had vanished (its whereabouts stay a thriller). Then got here a panicked name from Miller, who noticed jackhammers throughout the road.
“[I] acquired in a taxi, and acquired in a basic New York Metropolis site visitors jam, nothing shifting down Fifth Avenue,” she recalled. “So I acquired out and I ran 10 blocks, which I keep in mind as a result of I used to be 9 months pregnant.”
They determined that Miller — a much less recognizable participant within the drama — would method the foreman, with money he frantically collected from his staff, to attempt to save the sculptures.
Hunter-Stiebel says the foreman instructed Miller, who died in 2011: “The younger Donald has mentioned particularly that there is this loopy lady at a museum up the avenue who desires them, and I’ve to make certain they’re completely destroyed.”
They watched in horror because the jackhammers went to work. As of 2016, a minimum of one piece of the sculptures lived on the Miami balcony of former Trump Group govt Louise Sunshine, who didn’t reply to NPR’s interview request.
There was speedy fallout from the incident. The New York Occasions ran a front-page story through which Trump Group govt “John Baron” (now a well known Trump alias) mentioned eradicating them fastidiously would have price greater than thrice their appraisers’ estimated worth and delayed demolition by over per week. (Virtually 20 years later, in 1998, Trump paid $1.375 million to settle a class-action lawsuit involving using undocumented Polish laborers throughout that demolition.)
Res mentioned Trump instructed her a distinct model of the story: He provided the sculptures to the Met, however was turned down. As a result of they weren’t “landmarked,” she mentioned, “I do not see something improper with that besides mendacity about it.”
However to Hunter-Stiebel, the incident represents “Trump’s first expertise of the unfavorable delights of energy.”
“I am afraid we’ve seen the identical behavioral sample in giant scale, and an odd enjoyment of doing issues that may solely be damaging … together with [to] the particular person making these selections,” she added.
Performing not as a builder, however as an proprietorÂ
President Trump reveals a picture of his deliberate ballroom within the Oval Workplace on Oct. 22, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Pictures
conceal caption
toggle caption
Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Pictures
There is a world through which Trump’s profession expertise as a developer may benefit D.C., mentioned historian Tim Naftali, a professor at Columbia College’s Faculty of Worldwide Public Affairs.
“However the president hasn’t acted simply as a builder,” he mentioned. “He is acted as an proprietor, and that is the distinction. The president of the US doesn’t personal the US. The president of the US would not even personal the White Home.”
Naftali mentioned earlier presidents have all approached their White Home position as custodians. That does not imply they did not make modifications: There is a lengthy historical past of presidents renovating the White Home. However apart from Truman, who paid for the second-story balcony along with his government-funded “family account,” all of them went to Congress for authorization and funding.
Trump has not completed that for his constructing tasks, regardless that his celebration controls each homes of Congress. Consultants say that creates a harmful precedent for future occupants of the White Home.
“The constructing tasks are merely a symptom of President Trump’s concept of presidency, which is that he alone is the federal authorities of the US,” Naftali mentioned.
Past the White Home, Naftali mentioned D.C.’s most iconic monuments — honoring George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and extra — have been constructed by “presidential inspiration blended with congressional motion.” Presidents angled for monuments honoring their predecessors, not themselves.
Naftali thinks of four-term president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who made clear in his lifetime that the one memorial he wished for himself was a small block of granite along with his identify on it.
“Sure, he pushed for a memorial, but it surely was the Jefferson Memorial,” Naftali added. “Not the ‘Jefferson Memorial delivered to you by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.’ It was the Jefferson Memorial, constructed [and] financed by Congress.”
Charles Birnbaum, the CEO and founding president of The Cultural Panorama Basis — which sued the administration over the reflecting pool — says Trump has made clear that “the kind of social norms and decorum that existed traditionally is not being utilized.”
He famous, for instance, that Trump has appointed non-expert allies to the federal arts panels tasked with reviewing D.C. building. On the similar time, the administration can be shifting to roll again authorized protections for historic locations throughout the nation.
“All of those proposals that we’re seeing, what they’ve in widespread is they are not preserving and defending. They’re destroying, diminishing, altering,” mentioned Birnbaum. “And that’s the place Washington is a case examine proper now of what this administration desires to export to the remainder of the nation.”
When most up-to-date presidents take into consideration their legacy, Naftali mentioned, they give thought to the work itself and, to a point, the one constructing they count on will ultimately bear their identify: their presidential library, often constructed exterior of D.C. in a location of private significance. Trump has mentioned his — a deliberate skyscraper in Miami — will most definitely be a resort.
In terms of shaping his personal legacy, Trump has bucked presidential norms in some ways. Past his controversial building tasks, he is the primary sitting president to have an airport named after him, and the primary in a century to have his face on foreign money.
And whereas these acts could seem comparatively trivial at a time of broader financial and worldwide turmoil, Naftali mentioned, they need to ring alarm bells to anybody who cares concerning the separation of powers. He suspects Trump could also be wanting to jam his tasks by earlier than the midterms, when the make-up of Congress could shift.
Trump instructed New York Journal that the embattled White Home ballroom will likely be made from “nuclear concrete,” saying it might bodily be onerous for Democrats to at some point tear it down. The reporter of that story, Ben Terris, instructed NPR that Trump is “attempting to cement his legacy, actually, and … make one thing that no one can take away from him.”
However to Naftali and others, the better threat is in what is perhaps misplaced alongside the best way.
“We Individuals will strain Congress in a technique or one other to do one thing with no matter is left of the constructing program as soon as the president leaves workplace,” Naftali mentioned. “The larger concern is, do we would like our separation of powers of doctrine to outlive by our three hundredth birthday?”