President Donald Trump's latest tactic to build some of his decoration projects has been to claim that they're actually for the military. One report thinks that the strategy will backfire.

Writing for The Atlantic on Saturday, Janay Kingsberry noted that since announcing the project last year, the administration has been trying to bypass all of the regulations in place to get it built quickly before it can be stopped either by the judiciary, the legislature or a new president.

This week, on Thursday, the vice chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation terminated the Section 106 review process for the proposed "Triumphal Arch" at Memorial Circle. Section 106 is supposed to make federal agencies listen to the public before moving ahead. That didn't happen for Trump's arch. Officials ended the review before talks were even finished and gave the public only three and a half business days to respond. Americans have until before 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 29 to email jloichinger@achp.gov about their thoughts for or against the arch.

A veterans group has been fighting against the arch, noting the numerous problems with it, such as the massive height with an "observation deck" would allow tourists to watch funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. Others can't stand the way it turns the view away from Arlington, which is meant to honor American soldiers who sacrificed their lives for their country, and instead makes it about Trump.

"In arguing against the veterans’ lawsuit," Kingsberry said, "the project’s lead agency, the National Park Service, said the arch did not need congressional approval because a 1925 law had already authorized a pair of columns on that end of Memorial Bridge, to symbolize the post–Civil War reconciliation of North and South."

Near Abraham Lincoln's Washington cottage are the first fallen U.S. soldiers, their headstones marking a sacred vow to keep America whole. Seeking more room for the dead, Northern troops occupied the estate of Mary Anna Custis Lee, wife of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The Lincoln administration seized the land through a forced tax sale, a move the Supreme Court later ruled illegal. Yet, the landowner ultimately bowed to the grave; with thousands of American defenders already resting eternally, the grounds were fully sold to the government.

A single sightline of stone spans the Potomac River, weaving American history from Lincoln’s temple of freedom across the Memorial Bridge toward Arlington’s hills. It is there that the marble headstones dot green hills, forever binding a broken republic back together from Washington, D.C., from the United States, to Virginia in the Confederacy.

Kingsberry wonders if a 25-story Trump monument is even truly plausible, given Trump is now painting it as a "military facility" where snipers will be stationed, drones propped and ammunition stored. First, it makes little sense because there's no populated area around it. There are no federal buildings to defend. It's already less than a mile from the Pentagon, Fort Myer and less than two miles, as the crow flies, from the White House, where Trump claims he's building another "military center" he can also use as a ballroom.

What is in the area, however, is the heavily restricted flight path of many planes that land at Washington's closest airport, DCA. Already in the Trump administration, military missions near the airport led to the deaths of 67 people on a commercial flight when an Army helicopter ran directly into it. Kingsberry thinks adding drones could make things even more dangerous.

Storing so much ammunition near publicly accessible monuments also creates its own problems, requiring strict military safety mandates.

Experts, such as Patrick Suermann, a Texas A&M construction-science professor and retired Air Force officer, told Kingsberry that ammunition storage normally requires protected “quantity-distance” zones, which are safety buffers intended to protect people and nearby structures in the event of an explosion.

If those rules apply, the public might not be able to safely approach the arch at all, despite being designed for tourists and including a "cafe" and "gift shop." The other problem is that Memorial Circle is a heavily traveled area. There are six bridges people take in and out of Washington to Virginia via road or rail. Following the requirements of a protected distance zone could mean cutting off Memorial Bridge entirely.

Recently, Trump has battled with his ballroom architect, who was talking about building codes. The Washington Post reported that Trump bellowed, "I am the code." There appear to be many codes Trump would be forced to adhere to for his arch.

In short, the military pivot may give critics more grounds to sue, force the administration into new reviews, increase costs beyond the already estimated $100 million and build an even greater opposition. Instead of speeding construction, combining a gift shop with an arsenal could turn Trump’s arch into a legal, logistical and public-relations disaster.

One of the many renovation projects being proposed by President Donald Trump is huge "triumphal arch" that would be built near Arlington National Cemetery. Never Trump conservative Bill Kristol offers a scathing critique of the proposal in an article for The Bulwark, arguing that it is diametrically opposed to democratic American values.

"To my untrained eye," Kristol writes in The Bulwark, "it seems undistinguished, vulgar, and overbearing. But what do I know about architecture? What I do know is that this is not American architecture. It is triumphal, in its way. But that way is European. Or South American. Or North Korean."

Kristol describes Trump's "triumphal arch" as a prime example of Trump's "Napoleon envy" — that is, "envy" of France's Napoleon Bonaparte.

"(Interior Secretary Doug) Burgum himself inadvertently makes this point: 'Over 70 major cities/capitals around the world … showcase beautiful arches. Interestingly, Washington, DC, is the only major Western capital without an arch,'" Kristol writes. "I'm old enough to remember when we Americans would have taken this as a point of distinction, as a point of pride. We don't do Great Triumphal Arches. We don't want Great Triumphal Arches. We don't need Great Triumphal Arches to prove to ourselves that we are a great nation. That's what emperors and dictators do."

The conservative journalist adds, "Trump's inspiration for his Great Triumphal Arch seems to have been the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, commissioned by Napoleon in 1806. But Napoleon's dictatorial rule was the outcome of a failed revolution. We used to be proud that the American Revolution took a different path from the French. We used to be proud that the American Revolution culminated in the American Constitution, that it led to the establishment of a constitutional republic that has flourished for two and half centuries, not an empire that lasted a couple of decades."

Kristol emphasizes that "here in Washington, D.C., we honor George Washington, not Napoleon."

"Washington was elected president of the new republic, governed constitutionally, and turned over the reins of government after two terms," Kristol explains. "Napoleon seized power, governed dictatorially, and kept power until he led his nation to bloody defeat in wars he launched. We used to be proud that Washington was the father of our country. We used to be proud of American exceptionalism. No more. Trump has Napoleon envy. Indeed, the Trump administration's Great Triumphal Arch and military observation deck would be 250 feet tall, 54 percent taller than Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe. We'll have, as Burgum boasted, 'the most spectacular and beautiful arch of them all!'"

Kristol argues that Americans "should all be appalled that the silent and dignified rows of white marble headstones at Arlington could be overshadowed by this Great Triumphal Arch."

"We should all be appalled that our current president is trying to impose such an un-American project on us," Kristol warns. "But America in 2026 isn't France in 1806. President Trump isn't Emperor Napoleon. Here, the people rule. Stop the arch."

President Donald Trump's decoration projects rely heavily on congressional approval for funding, but that appears to be coming to an end.

While Trump claimed he would fully fund his ballroom project through donations, he has failed to secure the financing and has begged Congress for the cash, saying the ballroom is now a military center. The next move is to do the same with an arch, and Politico reported that at least one Republican isn't buying it.

The 25-story arch with a flame atop it will stand between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, blocking the view of the soldiers buried there.

While the arch was once supposed to have an "observation deck," it will now become a "military complex" with "snipers and drones," the president said over the weekend.

The White House ballroom that Trump claims will also be a military complex with a drone pad atop the room is less than four miles from where the arch will be built. The Pentagon and Fort Myer are even closer, and both are protected by a multi-layered air defense network covering the National Capital region. The network involves a national advanced surface-to-air missile system, quick-response helicopters and jets and even short-range mobile air defense systems, according to a 2002 press release about the new defenses in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson isn't keen on the idea.

“There’s a lot of things that we need the military funding for — in fact, we’re short on military funding right now,” Simpson told reporters while at the Capitol on Monday.

“If it was my choice, I wouldn’t put any of that money into the arch,” Simpson said.

When he was asked whether Pentagon funds should be funneled into the project, he said it's "something that needs to be debated." However, he added, there are other DoD projects that should take priority.

“I hope if they decide to do it, that they would come to Congress and ask for an appropriation for it if they’re going to use appropriated dollars to do it,” Simpson said.

Trump has come up with a way to spend funds at the Pentagon that were not allocated by Congress through a special memo from the general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. The memo claims that, thanks to the "Defense Production Act and annual defense legislation from 2017," and Article II of the Constitution, Trump, not Congress, has the ultimate authority on all military spending.

Another of President Donald Trump's vanity construction projects just got hit with a reality check, with the Park Service warning that his massive "triumphal arch" could, per The New Republic, "ruin just about everything near it."

Amid his broader push to remake Washington D.C., in his own image, Trump has been pushing through numerous construction projects in the nation's capital, with one of the more ostentatious among them being a 250-foot arch, a structure heavily inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The structure is slated to go up at Memorial Circle, a traffic circle across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial and situated near Arlington National Cemetery.

Critics have already warned that the massive arch, a great deal larger than most structures in Washington, would disrupt the city's skyline and block certain iconic vistas. Now, his own Parks Service agency has dealt the project a reality check, warning of the disruptions it will cause to the area.

"It would disrupt the symbolic relationship between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, obstruct sightlines from the Kennedy Gravesite and Robert E. Lee’s home, and alter what official documents call 'one of the most magnificent' views in Washington at the National Cathedral four miles away, the Park Service said," the New York Times detailed in a Monday report. "The Park Service is supposed to seek ways to reduce such 'adverse effects' on historic sites under the National Historic Preservation Act. But the arch is expected to move forward with little change given that Mr. Trump has shown no interest in the most obvious remedies — scaling down the project, or building it somewhere else."

In its own report on the Parks Service assessment, The New Republic summed up the warning as saying the arch could "ruin just about everything near it."

Ed Stierli, the vice president for government affairs with the National Parks Conservation Association, spoke to the Times for its report and said that "adverse effects" translates to "you’re building something that will irreversibly harm the experience in these other locations."

In a letter to the Parks Service in June, Roger W. Kirchen, Virginia’s State Historic Preservation Officer, warned that these disruptions were intentional on Trump's part.

“These adverse effects are intentional and inherent in the design of the arch," he wrote. "It is intended to dominate the surrounding landscape."

A Gold Star mom is lending her voice to the campaign against President Donald Trump's 25-story arch that will block the view of Arlington National Cemetery.

The group Vote Vets is launching a campaign to support the veterans and their families who are fighting to stop the arch being built in Memorial Circle, which sits at the entrance of the cemetery.

The administration has conceded that Trump's giant 250-foot arch would block the view of Arlington, but claimed that it would create a "new" view of Arlington for people standing from the observation deck of the structure.

That creates a problem for Karen Meredith, who lost her son, First Lt. Ken Ballard in Iraq in 2004. Ballard was a fourth-generation Army officer. He and thousands of others like him are buried at Arlington.

Funerals at Arlington are sacred, private moments honoring a family’s loss and a service member’s sacrifice. Tourists who insert themselves, either by approaching, filming, taking photographs or disrupting the ceremony, are breaking rules set out to give families their private moments to mourn their loss.

Trump's new arch, Meredith said, will allow tourists to watch funerals from the observation deck.

"For me, Arlington has been a nice quiet place," she said in the Vote Vets video. "We don't need tourists overlooking funerals. I'm just appalled."

Retired Major Gen. Paul Eaton is another opposed to the arch. He explained that it will sit between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, blocking any view of the famous lines of white marble headstones.

Arlington was first established by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. His cottage in North Washington was on land where he could honor the soldiers by giving them a place to rest and be recognized, next to his own home. But as more and more soldiers were lost, Lincoln ran out of room on his land. It was then that he established Arlington, and soldiers have been buried there ever since.

Lincoln's memorial overlooks the land where he honored the soldiers who fought and died to keep America together. Charles A. Birnbaum, the founder and CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, said that the arch will significantly alter that.

Gen. Eaton called Trump's arch "entirely inappropriate and borders on sacrilege to the men and women buried" there.

"Memorial. The use of that word is not an accident," he added.

"It will alter that hallowed ground and that feeling in association that everyone has when they experience the cemetery," said Birnbaum.

During his first term, Trump drew criticism for refusing to visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris, where Americans who died in World War I are buried. He was miffed that it was raining and, according to sources who spoke to The Atlantic, his hair would get messed up. Allegedly, Trump said the cemetery was “filled with losers.” The report further alleged that he called Marines who died at Belleau Wood “suckers.”

He continues to deny the claim, but retired Gen. John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff at the time, confirmed he heard Trump blast the soldiers.

Birnbaum went on to quote Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who addressed a proposal in 1916 to establish an arch at the end of Memorial Bridge. According to Olmsted, building that arch would be a “slap in the face to the Lincoln Memorial.” The U.S. dropped the plans after that.

Eaton was also bothered by the fact that Trump intends to do construction for 20 hours a day for three years to build the arch.

"Every weekday, someone is buried at Arlington National Cemetery," he said.

"If Trump thinks we'll be quiet about this proposed arch, he's wrong," said the Gold Star mother. She implored people to speak out about it.

The Commission will vote on Oct. 1

President Donald Trump is calling for his proposed "triumphal arch" near Arlington National Cemetery to be used as a "top grade military complex" that would include snipers and drone storage. But he's getting a strong pushback from Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), herself a U.S. Army veteran who lost both of her legs in the Iraq War.

In a strongly worded Friday, September 25 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford, the 58-year-old Duckworth wrote, "The FAA and DoD (U.S. Department of Defense) must reject this foolhardy plan and instead focus on increasing the safety of the airspace."

CBS News' Kris Van Cleave explains, "The FAA determined, last week, that the 250-foot arch, which is being constructed near Arlington National Cemetery, poses no hazard to flights coming into and departing from Reagan Airport. The letter was exclusively obtained by CBS News. (Duckworth) called Mr. Trump's announcement, made in a Truth Social post over the weekend, 'bizarre, unhinged early morning social media rants.'"

The "triumphal arch" is among the many proposed makeover projects that Trump has been pursuing in the Washinton, DC area. Trump's other proposals range from a lavish White House ballroom to renovations on the Kennedy Center.

"In the letter sent Friday," Van Cleave reports, "Duckworth, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation, took Trump administration officials to task for 'wasting time, energy and taxpayer dollars on yet another Trump vanity project.' She called it 'particularly outrageous' after what she described as the 'joint failure' of the FAA and Defense Department 'to effectively implement corrective actions that were recommended' by the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) following the January 2025 midair collision near Reagan Airport that killed 67 people."

Van Cleave adds, "The NTSB made 52 safety recommendations following the collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet that was landing at Reagan Airport."

Duckworth didn't hold back in the letter, telling Hegseth and Bedford, "It is disturbing to see Federal officials devote enormous attention to an unnecessary, proposed structure while the NTSB and the public are still demanding action on recommendations intended to prevent another catastrophic collision in our skies. The American people cannot afford to stand witness to Trump's risky plan to place a 250-foot structure along a busy approach path, especially if he follows through on plans to station snipers on the arch and fly drones ... in the already congested airspace."

Back in 1910, Congress passed the Height of Buildings Act — which was signed into law by GOP President William Howard Taft, amended the earlier Height of Buildings Act of 1899, and limited how tall buildings could be in the District of Columbia. Now, in 2026, that law is playing a major role in the legal battle over the 250-foot "triumphal arch" being proposed by President Donald Trump.

According to New York Times reporters Luke Broadwater, Emily Badger and Junho Lee reporters, the National Capital Planning Commission is examining the law's specifics and how they apply to Trump's proposal.

"For decades, the planning commission reviewing construction projects in Washington has stood by the principle that the federal law limiting the height of buildings in the capital applies to federal projects," Broadwater, Badger and Lee report in the Times. "But now that President Trump has proposed building a giant triumphal arch, the commission, which is led by Trump allies, is considering a different, more lenient view. On Thursday, (July 9), the National Capital Planning Commission will consider a new interpretation of the 1910 Height of Buildings Act: that it was never meant to apply to federal projects, and certainly not to Mr. Trump's 250-foot arch."

The reporters add, "The act 'does not reference federal buildings,' the Interior Department wrote in a memo submitted to the panel, arguing that 'Congress did not intend' for the law to be interpreted the way the commission had read it for nearly 90 years."

If the National Capital Planning Commission does change its interpretation of the Height of Buildings Act, according to the Times journalists, it "would likely prompt a new legal fight."

The arch, if it comes about, would be built near Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. And a group of Vietnam veterans is suing to stop the project — which they say would obstruct the views between the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's home.

"Democrats have said that the project violates three federal laws, including the Commemorative Works Act, which governs monuments on federal land in Washington, and a 1912 law that says buildings or structures 'shall not be erected' on federal land in the capital 'without express authority of Congress,'" according to the Times reporters. "But the Height of Buildings Act, which generally does not allow buildings more than 130 feet tall in Washington, has become the latest complication…. There was no locally elected government in Washington when the Height Act was passed in 1910. The city was run by federally appointed commissioners, and by Congress. Washington gained its current measure of local governance only in the 1970s."