SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Several key areas have defined President Trump's second term so far - overseas wars, immigration enforcement, tariffs and also remaking Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have an unbelievable arc that I think will be the most beautiful in the world.
You're going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful, reflecting pool the way it's supposed to be, much better than it ever was actually.
I'm good at ballrooms, and we're giving you the - I believe it's the best - it'll be the best ever built.
DETROW: Since President Trump returned to office, his administration has made changes to more than 100 structures across Washington. That tally is according to a recent New York Magazine story by a reporter who sat down with the president and came away with the conclusion, there is nothing Trump enjoys more than talking construction. Ben Terris is New York Magazine's Washington correspondent. Hey, Ben.
BEN TERRIS: Hey. How you doing?
DETROW: So you sat down to talk construction face to face with President Trump. And what's more than that, when you were talking to him in the Oval Office, he decided to take you on an impromptu tour of the ballroom construction site. Tell me what happened next.
TERRIS: Yeah, that's right. Honestly, it felt a little bit like I was giving him the best day of his presidency. You know, people come in there and they want to talk to him about war, they want to talk about tariffs, and he keeps trying to bring the conversation to the ballroom because it's his favorite topic. And I went in there just wanting to talk about the ballroom and other construction projects. And so I thought I was going to get 15, 20 minutes with him. I ended up getting about an hour and a half; 45 minutes in the Oval Office, and then he said, hey, you want to come check out the ballroom and all the renovations I've done around the White House? And I said, yeah, let's do it. So we toured around, and we saw pretty much every little nook and cranny of the place that he's been changing.
DETROW: There's a lot to talk about there, but one specific thing I want to ask about is, did you learn anything new about one of the big mysteries of this, the underground military bunker that's part of the ballroom construction?
TERRIS: Well, I asked him if there was currently one because, you know, he obviously tore down the East Wing and turned it into a construction site and is now saying that one of the main reasons he wants to do that is because he wants to have a military bunker that can protect him in the case of nuclear war or put a hospital down there, all sorts of things that the military supposedly wants. I asked him if he currently had a bunker that he could get to. I mean, is the president safe right now, I wanted to know? And he said, yeah, but it's - basically, like, it's bad, you know? Who wants to go down to the one that - it's just a little room somewhere. The White House is too fragile to build anything kind of expansive underneath.
And so he says that when he started talking about the ballroom, members of the military came to him and said, look, we've been wanting to do this big project, this kind of secret project under the White House forever. But we've never had the opportunity. You're giving us the opportunity. Let us build something, you know, remarkable down there.
DETROW: A luxury bunker.
TERRIS: Yeah, basically.
DETROW: You didn't just talk to Trump, and I think this is one of the more interesting parts of the story. You talked to a lot of people in his orbit about what's driving this because it's not just the ballroom. It's, as we mentioned, the Kennedy Center, the Rose Garden, this arch, the reflecting pool. What do the people around him think is driving this?
TERRIS: Well, there's a lot of things, right? I mean, first of all, he just likes it. He's a builder by trade, you know, came up in real estate. This is him going back to his roots. People in his inner circle have told me that it's like knitting for him. It's something that relaxes him while he's doing other things. Somebody told me it was like exercise for him. Somebody said it was like Winston Churchill painting during World War II. I mean, they speak of him in these kind of lofty terms like that. He told me it relaxes him.
DETROW: Yeah. But, I guess, relaxing personal projects are personal projects. These are things that affect landmarks that the whole country looks to.
TERRIS: Yeah, and more than that, it takes up a lot of his mind share, right? Yeah, sure, they can say that when he is doing this, he can do other things. But every time he - somebody told me that every time he wants to have a half hour long conversation, it could easily take an hour and a half 'cause he wants to bring everything else up. The president's time is valuable. He is spending a lot of his time and a lot of his thinking on tree heights in parks and granite that he's going to use for walkways and the marble that he's going to use on the floor of the ballroom. I mean, he's very interested in the concrete that's going to be used for the ballroom.
You know, I asked him, are you worried at all about Democrats tearing this down if they take power in 2028? and he basically told me, I'd like to see them try. He said, this is going to be built with nuclear concrete - that's what he told me - concrete that could withstand a nuclear blast. He said, if a Democrat came with a jackhammer and spent two days jackhammering the same spot on a column, it wouldn't leave a mark. You know, he's trying to cement his legacy, literally, and he's trying to build something that will withstand the test of time. If he passes legislation, if he signs executive orders, these things can get rolled back. He's trying to make something that nobody can take away from him.
DETROW: I'm curious what you think at the end of your reporting on this about the political risk here. The cost of living is a top concern for voters. Inflation is a top concern for voters, and he is rolling out blueprints of these luxury sites and talking about the parties he's going to throw there. Any sense that anyone in the White House, if not the president, is worried about the politics of this?
TERRIS: Yeah, I talked to Trump advisors who said that he's been warned about this. He just doesn't really care. You know, the politics are bad. Most Americans do not like this project, the ballroom or the arch or the reflecting pool. They just don't like it. You know, as you said, cost of living is high. He's building this thing that's kind of in the image of Versailles. You know, he's building a palace-like structure here. And people are worried about, you know, the price of gasoline. And so it really is not a good look.
But he just doesn't care. I mean, he says that the people should be thanking him for this. He believes that he's restoring glory to the White House. And he really is thinking a lot about his own legacy. You know, there's this kind of famous viral moment where Senator Jon Ossoff from Georgia, a couple months ago, said that Donald Trump is building monuments for himself because he doesn't think anybody's going to do it when he's gone. And I asked the president about that, expecting him to dodge. And he said, yeah, that's right. Nobody else will do it. When I'm gone, nobody else will do it. So he clearly is thinking about what he's leaving behind, you know, if and when he leaves the White House.
DETROW: That is Ben Terris, Washington correspondent for New York Magazine. Ben, thanks for talking to us about yet another interesting Oval Office interview you had with President Trump.
TERRIS: Thanks so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
