The ‘Arc de Trump’: President Shows Off Plans For His Latest Grandiose D.C. Construction Project

TIME

President Donald Trump has unveiled detailed plans to build a large triumphal arch in the capital, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Independence next year.

Transcript

00:00You're really here because you've contributed to this incredible building that people have wanted

00:04for so many years. And we show another building. It's an ark. It's the ark. So that circle that's

00:11Arlington Memorial Bridge, as you know, it's sort of the most important, a very important structure.

00:17And at the end of it, you have a circle that was built 150 years ago. Nobody knows really when.

00:24And in fact, they put a couple of columns on each side. So you have two columns

00:27on one side, two columns on the other. But yet, in the middle, just a circle. And everyone that passed

00:34us had said something was supposed to be built there. That's true. But a thing called the Civil

00:40War interfered. And so we have versions of it, sizes of it. And it's going to be, it's going to be really

00:48beautiful. I think it's going to be fantastic. There's a rendering of what it will look like.

00:52You have three sizes. That would be the largest one. This is just a lot of what it would look like

00:57in either of the three, any of the three sizes, which is right now. I don't know if you can see.

01:03So that's Lady Liberty. Lady, did you ever hear of Lady Liberty?

01:09Real estate is a very trying business. I've always liked it. I've always done well with it. I love

01:15building things. And this way, I can build some beautiful things. And this, again, has never been

01:22built. And we're going to start that pretty soon. It's going to be great. And then the ballroom

01:27for the White House is the thing that you people have really, really been very generous with. And

01:33we're going to build a room that's going to be able to hold literally the inauguration if we want.

01:40All of the glass on the sides is bulletproof. It's 999 people it can hold. So if we figure we have 125

01:48people in here approximately now, which I've never seen before. I've always heard it's less than 100.

01:53But it's amazing when you have too many people, you can fit them in. You know, you can always fit a few

01:57more people in. And pardon the fact that you're a little tight at your table. That's okay. That's better

02:02than lots of room for everybody because nobody shows up. Right. But you've been you've been so

02:09generous in your contributions. Very substantial money, fully financed. It's fully taken care of now.

02:16And in fact, we'll have money left over. And we'll use that for something. We'll use that

02:21probably maybe for the arc or something else that will come. But we love to fix up Washington. I want

02:26to build a ballroom. It needs it badly. And a ballroom that could seat six or seven hundred

02:31people so that when you have state dinners or more of it's possible. And I said, how long would

02:36the process take? Because I'm so used to zoning. And I've gone I've gotten a lot of zoning over the

02:41years to these two guys, these two geniuses like like movie stars. And and they have a good brain.

02:47Besides, that's pretty nice. Nice to have you guys both with us. So they said, how long?

02:52I said, how long would it take? They said, sir, you can start tonight. I said, what are you talking

02:57about? You have zero zoning conditions. You're the president. I said, you got to be kidding.

03:03You mean I can actually do something that I really want? Because I'm used to sitting with

03:08heads of community boards and politics. And it's fine. It's part of the the beauty of you want to

03:15call it that. Or sometimes it's not so beautiful of being a real estate developer, especially in New

03:19York. It takes you years and years. And it's, you know, it's heartache.

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