Washington, DC

How Donald Trump became the president of Washington, DC

On August 3, 2023, Donald Trump was seated in the back seat of a Chevrolet Suburban, on his way from the airport to the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. Facing arraignment on four charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, he looked out the window and saw a US 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.

Trump’s obsession with Washington has taken on even greater centrality as, 17 months into his second term, he slams into the limits of his power as US president. Mired in a complicated effort to end the Iran conflict, he’s also fighting with a Republican-led Congress that had previously bowed to his demands and is dealing with stubbornly high inflation rates. He’s had to swallow decisions by a Supreme Court that have placed limits on his tariffs and this week ruled against his efforts to overturn birthright citizenship for undocumented migrants. The summer’s political bestseller portrays him as a figure whose transformative potential has been utterly derailed by hubris.

But there’s one space where Trump retains enormous latitude: the physical footprint of DC. That’s evident in the 92-foot “Claw” that he had erected on the South Lawn in June for a UFC fight, the $600 million White House ballroom renovation, the newly painted deep-blue reflecting pool, and the massive 16-day Great American State Fair on the National Mall for the US’ 250th anniversary.

Where previous presidents have passed through Washington, taking pains to assure voters they are merely visitors, Trump is imposing a vision on Washington with a clarity and forceful execution that have evaded him in other parts of his job. The changes will likely have a lasting impact, according to interviews with nearly a dozen advisers, people close to and formally in the White House, and others involved in Trump’s DC makeover.

“How fitting as we go into our 250th that President Trump is personally involved in making sure that our capital reflects the greatness of our country,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters last month as he stood alongside Trump, who rattled off in minute detail how he was sandblasting granite sidewalks, planting new grass, and cleaning graffiti off fountains. The renovations, he said, show Trump refusing to accept any evidence of American decline.

Trump has been thinking about the nation’s birthday celebrations for at least fifty years. In the decades following the 1976 bicentennial, Trump would sometimes lament that the festivities for the country’s founding had been “underwhelming,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime adviser and ally, recalling a conversation with the president at Trump Tower just before Independence Day 2014. “He’s said that he thought our country could have done a much better job celebrating [it],” Caputo said.