President Donald Trump’s second term has been marked by a lot more construction than his first. In ways big and small the President has been reshaping DC, from painting statues near the Lincoln Memorial gold to redecorating the Oval Office in gold, to draining the Reflecting Pool or trying to build a 250 foot arch turned military complex. There are the threats to bulldoze the Kennedy Center and the actual bulldozing of the East Wing to make space for his new ballroom. The President has been consumed by the thoughts of concrete, appliqué, and architectural drawings.
At the center of all these projects is one goal, to cement his legacy.
On Today, Explained, host Sean Rameswaram talked to New York magazine’s Ben Terris about why the President has become obsessed with building monuments to himself and what it was like to get a private tour of the ballroom construction site.
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—Amina Al-Sadi, Supervising Editor, Today, Explained
