YUGE

Staggering Cost of Trump’s Tacky Vanity Projects Revealed

Taxpayers are helping foot the extraordinary bill.

The full price tag of Donald Trump’s determination to reshape Washington, D.C., in his own image is coming into focus—and it is staggering.

The total cost of the president’s various vanity projects across the capital, combining private donations and public funds, is on track to exceed $1 billion, according to Financial Times estimates. The new East Wing ballroom and its security costs alone account for nearly $800 million of that figure.

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A 250-foot Triumphal Arch is planned for the stretch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. A National Garden of American Heroes would feature 250 statues of historical figures ranging from Thomas Jefferson to game show host Alex Trebek. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been recoated “American flag blue.” The Eisenhower Executive Office Building is to be painted white to match the White House next door. And a public golf course is being converted into a championship-level complex for the president’s preferred pastime.

Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary and the man responsible for all paperwork that reaches Trump’s desk, told the Financial Times that Trump is “intensely involved” in the plans. Scharf, who was named chair of the National Capital Planning Commission—the federal design and construction review panel that has approved the East Wing project and assessed the Triumphal Arch—said he has had “long conversations” with Trump on flights and on the road discussing “the virtues of Corinthian versus Ionic columns.”

The ballroom, Scharf said, is something Trump considers part of his “legacy” to the country. He framed the project as a matter of national dignity, recalling Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hosting the U.S. at the “incredibly beautiful” Akasaka Palace in Tokyo and King Charles III welcoming Trump at Windsor Castle.

“And then here, you know, we’re pitching a tent,” Scharf said. “I think the president’s view is that it was almost below the dignity of the office of the presidency and of the United States to have a makeshift solution for the most important events hosted at the White House.”

He added, with some confidence, “Future presidents of all political stripes will either publicly, or perhaps under their breaths, thank the president for his vision and foresight.”

Not everyone shares that view. David Scott Parker, an architect on the board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said the ballroom would disturb the White House’s architectural equilibrium. “Classicism is about symmetry and balance. The composition is out of balance,” he said, adding that the structure’s 120-foot colonnade would include fake windows, and that the ballroom would be so large it could feel “sparse” even with 500 people inside.

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Trump’s spokesperson said donors would contribute approximately $400 million toward the East Wing—double the initial estimate. The pledge list includes Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s family, Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman, oil tycoon Harold Hamm, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United co-owner Edward Glazer, the Winklevoss twins, and Ike Perlmutter, alongside companies including Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Coinbase, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and Tether. Taxpayers will still be on the hook for security, which could add hundreds of millions more.

Meanwhile, Trump’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has not gone well. The Interior Department handed a no-bid contract to a Trump-allied contractor to recoat the basin in “American flag blue.” Costs have already surpassed $14.7 million, and the project’s most visible achievement so far has been turning the water a vivid green in its worst algal bloom in years.

The public is not impressed. A Washington Post poll from April found 52 percent of Americans opposed the Triumphal Arch, against just 21 percent in favor. Opposition to the ballroom ran even higher, with 56 percent against and only 28 percent in support.

Trump, however, shows no signs of slowing down. A Washington Post analysis of his speeches, interviews, and online posts found he mentioned his Washington renovation plans almost every day last month—up sharply from roughly one in three days in January, and one in eight days a year ago. For three straight months, he has invoked his building plans more often than healthcare or wages.

“It’s where he is the most comfortable,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz told the Post.

The White House was approached for comment. Spokesman Davis Ingle said, “President Trump is making the White House and our Nation’s Capital beautiful and giving it the glory it deserves – something everyone should celebrate. The President will continue to beautify and honor our Nation’s Capital during America’s historic 250^th anniversary celebrations.”

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