Donald Trump is hoping a massive ballroom and military installation on the White House grounds will one day bear his name as he speedruns through several multi-million dollar construction projects across the nation’s capital to secure his presidential legacy.
He recently admitted to New York Magazine’s Ben Terris that he is slapping his name on things because he knows nobody else will after he’s “gone.”
Trump conceded that Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who remarked earlier this year that the president appears to be building monuments to himself because no one else wants to, may be right.
“That’s true,” Trump told Terris. “Nobody will do it once I’m gone. When I leave here, nobody will.”
The president’s remarkably candid comments to the magazine follow an unprecedented blitz across Washington, D.C., to either put his name or leave an unmistakably Trump-like imprint on buildings, monuments and other landmarks before the former real-estate mogul leaves the White House.
The president is embroiled in several lawsuits against his efforts to remake D.C., including renaming the Kennedy Center and its campus after him, overhauling the capital’s beloved golf course and renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Trump also is planning to build his own version of the Arc de Triomphe to tower over the capital, and his face is printed on massive banners hanging from federal buildings, including the Department of Justice headquarters. The Department of State also created a commemorative “Patriot Passport” featuring an image of a scowling Trump leaning on his fists while standing in front of the Constitution, and the U.S. Mint is now circulating a commemorative $1 coin with his face on it.
He’s also naming his policy achievements after himself — there are “Trump Accounts,” “TrumpRx,” and a “Trump Gold Card” that offers a fast-track to legal residency in the U.S. for the price of $1 million. The U.S. military is also developing a line of “Trump-class” battleships as well as the USS Donald J. Trump aircraft carrier.
But his biggest and most-expensive project yet is the transformation of what was once the East Wing of the White House into a gold-filled, bullet-proof ballroom sandwiched between a “military complex” that includes a sprawling underground bunker and with a “drone port” roof.
Recently revealed designs for the project show plans for an ornate, gold-stuffed interior with golden marble floors and a chandelier, as well as gold finishes on the exterior that were not previously included in plans approved by federal agencies earlier this year.
The Supreme Court has allowed the president to continue construction while federal judges — and even Chief Justice John Roberts — question the legality of the entire project after the administration destroyed the East Wing to make way for a 90,000-square-foot facility that officials say is vital to national security and the president’s safety.
Trump told New York Magazine that he hopes his name is on it.
“It should,” he said. “I don’t know if it will, but it should.”
A senior administration official told the magazine that “his rush to get it done in this term is so important because it’s something the Democrats would have a hard time taking away or getting rid of.”
“When the ballroom is built, everyone will always know in perpetuity that it was built by Donald Trump,” the person said. “Are Democrats going to come in and rip it down? I have a hard time believing that.”
Trump said he doesn’t believe it can even be physically torn down — a point of argument brought by preservationists who have tried, and failed, to stop him in court from further construction. Materials for the project are intended to be nuclear-blast resistant.
“I don’t think they could, physically,” Trump told the magazine of potential efforts in the future to tear it down.
“It’s made with the most powerful steel welded together and concrete that is so hard and so strong it’s used in nuclear-power plants,” he added. “You could take a jackhammer and go to those columns and stand there for two days at full blast and you wouldn’t even see a mark. It’s nuclear concrete. I think it would be very hard. It’s meant for if there’s a nuclear attack. I’m not sure you could take it down.”
Trump also appears to be more focused not just on his legacy — as he faces the likelihood of impeachment proceedings and investigations in his remaining years in office — but his mortality, as the 80-year-old president prepares for a second half of his administration as the oldest one ever.
The president appears to have grown more introspective and openly discussed the end of his life following a series of alleged assassination attempts. He has even mused publicly about whether he will go to heaven.
