More than two centuries have passed since France celebrated the emperor Napoleon’s birthday by laying the foundation stone of the Arc de Triomphe. Now Donald Trump has imperial ambitions of his own.
On Wednesday, the US president unveiled plans for a grand arch in Washington that has already been dubbed the “Arc de Trump”.
The project, likely to be seen by critics as evidence of monumental hubris, is the latest attempt by property developer-turned-politician Trump to transform the US capital for good.
He told wealthy guests about the idea during a glitzy dinner in the White House East Room. The president pointed to a map displaying its proposed location as a gateway to Washington from northern Virginia.
“Every time somebody rides over that beautiful bridge to the Lincoln Memorial, they literally say, something is supposed to be here,” he said.
The location is overlooked by Arlington House, the former home of Robert E Lee, who led the army of northern Virginia on the Confederate side during the civil war. Various statues of Lee were removed after the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
But, Trump added: “That’s Arlington Memorial Bridge and, at the end of it, you have a circle that was built 150 years ago … In 1902, they were going to put a statue of Robert E Lee up, would have been OK with me – would’ve been on with a lot of the people in this room.”
Trump picked up and showed off 3D models of the project in three sizes with a gold Lady Liberty statue on top. “Small, medium, large,” said Trump, eliciting laughter in the room. “I happen to like the large one. Why are you shocked?”
Among the many differences between Trump’s first and second terms is his willingness to unleash his inner builder.
Wednesday’s dinner was designed to thank billionaires and top companies for donating to another of his pet projects: a new $250m ballroom at the White House. He opened the curtains of the East Room to show guests where work has started on the giant ballroom, the biggest addition to the White House in more than a century.
He said the building would have four walls of bulletproof glass and a capacity of 1,000 people, and would be able to host a presidential inauguration.
The guests reportedly included representatives from tech firms such as Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft and Palantir and the defence giant Lockheed Martin, as well as twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of crypto platform Gemini.
Trump told the gathering: “So many of you have been really, really generous. I mean, couple of you I have sitting here are saying: ‘Sir, would $25m be appropriate?’ I said: ‘I’ll take it.’
“So, we are going to have a phenomenal ballroom. It’s going to be one of the best anywhere in the world. There won’t be anything like it, actually. It’s four sides of beautiful glass. We will be able to have state dinners. We would literally not even have state dinners because it is not set up.”
Trump has said the ballroom will be built entirely with private money. It includes $22m from a settlement with YouTube in September after the company suspended his account over the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
It is the biggest in a series of renovations Trump has made to the White House since returning to power in January, including erecting flagpoles, covering the Oval Office with gold decor (the New York Times called it a “gilded rococo nightmare”) and paving over the Rose Garden.
Along the colonnade, he installed a “presidential walk of fame” with gold-framed pictures of every president except Joe Biden, who is replaced by an autopen. In recent days, he placed a statue of George Washington in the garden and a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln beside the Oval Office.
According to the Axios news site, Trump has treated Benjamin Netanyahu and his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb, to 40-minute tours of the White House renovations.
He told guests on Wednesday: “It’s so relaxing for me. Real estate is relaxing. For a lot of people, real estate is a very trying business. I’ve always liked it. I’ve always done well with it.”
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