U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Since returning to the White House on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump has been heavily focused on giving the Washington, DC area an extensive makeover — from the Kennedy Center to a proposed White House ballroom to a proposed "triumphal arch" near Arlington National Cemetery in Virigina. And according to a GOP insider, Trump's DC makeover obsession started when he was on his way to a federal courthouse to face criminal election interference charges.
Trump was up against four criminal indictments during the 2024 election: two federal, one in Georgia, and one in New York State. Jack Smith, then a special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), prosecuted Trump for keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in one case and for election interference in another. And according to a former campaign official interviewed by Semafor, Trump was on his way to the federal E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in DC in August 2023 when he started thinking about an extensive makeover for the U.S. capital.
The Daily Beast's Leigh Kimmins, drawing on Semafor's reporting, notes, "There, he hatched his plan to redesign the city in his own image, (the official) said. Just over a year later, he won the 2024 election and, upon taking office in January 2025, set about making his changes. The official, who was on the campaign trail with Trump, described how the vehicle had to swerve in the middle of the road to avoid debris, and how homeless encampments lined the streets. This rankled Trump, who made his fortune in real estate, (the official) said."
Trump's desire to give DC a "gaudy facelift," according to Kimmins, started when, on his way to the Prettyman Courthouse, he felt the city had fallen into disrepair.
Semafor's Shelby Talcott reports, "Facing arraignment on four charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, he looked out the window and saw a U.S. capital that had been slow to recover from COVID-19 and was bucking a national decline in crime. The ex-president saw shattered tiles in the roadway and homeless people sleeping on street corners in a city whose police department had recommended drivers stay in the middle lane to avoid carjackers. At one point, the vehicle swerved to avoid bricks and concrete dumped in the middle of the road. It was on that ride, an official with him on the campaign trail to reclaim the White House now believes, that the real estate developer-turned-president developed a new fixation with what he regarded as a second-tier swamp town that had slouched into its status as imperial capital."