Trump looted nearly $1 billion from 'struggling' National Parks to pay for vanity projects

In March, President Donald Trump claimed that a series of flippant White House renovations costing $1.3 million were “paid for by me,” but new reporting in the Atlantic has revealed that, in fact, American taxpayers footed the bill in the form of funding looted from the already struggling National Parks Service. What's more, Trump has diverted a total of nearly $1 billion to cover his D.C. vanity projects, forcing the Parks Service to cancel hundreds of badly needed improvements.

As reporter Michael Scherer explains, “The pathway that connects the White House residence to the Oval Office has long been paved in Tennessee flagstone. Every president since Harry Truman made the 45-second commute, and made it without complaint, until Donald Trump. The dun rock would not do. Instead, Trump wanted polished African granite, carved in Italy, with a flamed-finish stripe — slightly raised, to prevent slips — running down the middle. As workers tore up the flagstone last March, a reporter asked Trump who was paying for the enhancements. ‘Paid for by me,’ he replied. But that wasn’t true.”

According to budget documents from the National Park Service obtained by Scherer, “the walkway replacement cost taxpayers $689,232, and is part of a $1.3 million project that included repairing adjacent stone and masonry and providing new hardware for nearby doors. A year earlier, in a separate ‘Rush project at request of POTUS,’ the Park Service spent $347,503 to remove and replace the stucco on the colonnade wall, a project that cleared the way for Trump to affix gold frames and plaques mocking some of his predecessors.”

This, notes Scherer, is a massive shift of taxpayer funds away from National Parks across the country, and as a result, “parks have had to cancel needed repairs, slash their budgets and operate with fewer employees. Taxpayer spending on projects in the National Capital Region has increased 92 percent over the past year… The windfall draws on revolving maintenance accounts and more than $100 million in fees collected almost entirely from National Parks elsewhere.”

Instead of National Parks, the money has gone to Trump’s disastrous Reflecting Pool debacle, the refurbishment of fountains, coating statues with gold and his $1.6 million Fourth of July fireworks display — which he has vowed will be the largest in history — among other efforts in D.C. According to Scherer, Trump’s requests for billions more have been rejected by Congress.

“As Trump attempts to adorn his immediate surroundings with taxpayer-funded improvements, other parks are going without,” explains Scherer. “Park Service employees I spoke with describe a quiet crisis unfolding as the Interior Department’s regular budget shrinks and political appointees redirect the dwindling funds. More than 900 Park Service projects that were expected to be funded this year never received the money, according to internal records. They include a $1.5 million roof-replacement project at the Yellowstone Center for Resources to halt pest invasions and water leaks, more than $3 million to continue operating the free-bus system in Acadia National Park and a roughly $424,000 guardrail replacement on the cliff edge of Black Canyon in Colorado’s Gunnison National Park, a project needed to rectify a ‘significant safety hazard for visitors.’”

“The president is prioritizing D.C. at the expense of parks throughout the country,” said Emily Douce, a lobbyist for the National Parks Conservation Association. “There is $24 billion of maintenance needs throughout the National Park Service system, and adding these new vanity projects just adds to the need.”

The numbers that Scherer lays out are shocking. According to “dozens of pages of budgetary documentation,” there has been “an $854 million, or 68 percent, decrease in spending on projects in park regions outside the Washington area in the first eight and a half months of fiscal year 2026, compared with the full prior fiscal year. That includes a $235 million decrease in spending in Pacific West parks such as Yosemite, a $254 million decrease in the Intermountain Region parks such as Yellowstone, and a $33 million decrease in Alaska. During that same period, spending around Washington increased by about $100 million, not counting about $310 million in donations that the Park Service received from allies of the president, most of which is going to fund a new White House ballroom.”

A Park Service employee who was not authorized to speak with the media told Scherer that some parks and projects have had “nearly 70 percent of their approved anticipated project funds pulled back,” forcing them to delay making crucial repairs to historic structures, hiring interns, and ensuring that trails are wheelchair accessible. “It means that signage and exhibits won’t be improved,youth programs can’t be offered, that a trail is not improved,” said the employee.