Donald Trump is utterly obsessed with his tacky vanity projects across the nation’s capital, and now there are numbers to prove it.
A new Washington Post analysis, drawn from the president’s speeches, interviews, and online posts, found he mentioned his Washington, D.C., refurbishment efforts almost every day last month. It marks a steep rise from roughly one in three days in January, and one in eight days last June.
The real estate mogul has, for three months straight, invoked his building plans more often than healthcare or wages, the newspaper reported. “It’s where he is the most comfortable,” Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, told the Post.
The 80-year-old president spent Sunday touring the capital, stopping by a park, the public golf links he wants to widen, and the roundabout earmarked for his 250-foot “Triumphal Arch.” He later called the sites “even nicer than the day they were built” in a Truth Social post running to 589 words.
The arch, slated for construction at Memorial Circle, has sparked significant pushback. A group of Vietnam War veterans sued in February to halt the plans, arguing they represent an insult to the memory of fallen soldiers by threatening to obscure views of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 400,000 people are buried.
Then there’s the ballroom. Trump razed the White House East Wing in October to make way for the 90,000-square-foot extension. The president pledged it would cost $200 million, funded entirely by private donations. The true price tag has since emerged at $600 million, with more than half to be paid by taxpayers.
His refurb of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been a disaster. The Interior Department handed a no-bid deal to a Trump-allied contractor to recoat the basin “American flag blue.” Costs have soared past $14.7 million, and the project has so far succeeded only in turning the monument’s waters a vibrant green with its worst algal bloom for years.
Voters have proven considerably less hot on the broader effort than the president is. A Washington Post poll in April found 52 percent opposed the arch, against just 21 percent in favor, with 56 percent objecting to the ballroom while only 28 percent backed it.
The White House has defended the campaign. “President Trump remains laser-focused on lowering costs for working families, keeping the American people safe, and making this country greater than ever before—including the long-overdue beautification of our nation’s capital,” spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Post.
The Daily Beast has contacted Trump’s office for further comment.
