Trump Officials Admit Planned Arch Would Ruin Everything Around It

The Trump administration is admitting that Trump’s proposed “Triumphal Arch” in Washington, D.C., will harm historical sites, but claiming it must be built anyway.

The Washington Post, citing a National Park Service document and email correspondence, reports that government officials fully acknowledge that the proposed arch, which would be built on the Memorial Circle traffic roundabout, would overshadow the nearby Arlington National Cemetery and have negative impacts on other historic sites, including the Lincoln Memorial.

The “adverse effects cannot be fully avoided,” an NPS document states, but there’s nowhere else that the arch can be built because “the proposed location at Memorial Circle is central to the undertaking.” The document is a proposed agreement that Trump officials want historical preservation organizations to sign as part of federal requirements.

“NPS recognizes that Memorial Circle is located within a highly sensitive historic and commemorative landscape and that the Undertaking’s location contributes to adverse effects to historic properties whose significance is associated with setting, design, feeling, association, spatial organization, circulation, and contributing views and vistas,” the document states.

The only remedies the White House is offering to these negative effects are new signs and web pages explaining the project to the public, managing construction so as not to interfere with burials at the cemetery, and documenting the surrounding landscape before beginning to build.

An email states that the NPS asked historical preservationists and other groups to review and sign the agreement by noon Monday, which would overcome legal hurdles and secure final approval for the arch. The White House hopes to submit the project to the National Capital Planning Commission for final approval as early as November.

Three veterans and an architectural historian have sued to stop the arch’s construction, and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last week ordered the government to give 48 hours before breaking ground on the project, which the Trump administration is fighting. But considering that the White House just admitted that the underlying reason for the lawsuit is valid, the arch may be tied up in court for a while.

Postmaster General David Steiner wants out.

The United States Postal Service chief told individuals close to him that he wants to resign from his post, according to a report from Reuters on Wednesday. “The message was, this isn’t what he signed up for, and he didn’t come on board to get beat up like this,” one source said.

This report comes as President Trump has been attempting to use the supposedly independent mail service to do his bidding in his last-minute midterm election interference, commanding it to only deliver ballots if they had a unique barcode and if states handed over voter lists to the agency. The Supreme Court struck that dream down on Monday, just two days before reports of Steiner’s discontent.

USPS has denied the report, saying it has “absolutely zero ⁠validity.”

Steiner was apparently most discouraged after an intense Senate hearing earlier this summer in which he essentially admitted under oath that USPS would bend the knee to Trump’s attacks on vote-by-mail.

However, sources familiar with Steiner’s plans told Reuters his discontent stretched back even further. The White House was making efforts to assuage Steiner since the end of last year, with donors even setting him up on a golf outing with Trump on one of his properties in Florida in December.

“Give us another chance,” says Vice President JD Vance when asked about his midterm message to the American people.

The vice president joined the All-In podcast for a disastrous live interview Wednesday, during which he struggled to defend the Trump administration’s record on everything from the war in Iran to high rates of inflation.

“You promised that you wouldn’t start a foreign war. You promised that you wouldn’t start a foreign war in the Middle East, specifically,” co-host Jason Calacanis said. “Americans—specifically the people who voted for you, Mr. Vice President—are very upset about starting this war. What is your message to them?”

“We invite people into the coalition who disagree with us. You don’t have to agree with us on every single issue.” Vance responded, completely dodging the question. He failed to acknowledge Donald Trump’s repeated promises to stay out of the Middle East, including a pledge at the Republican National Convention two years ago: “With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. I don’t have wars,” Trump said at the time.

“Wanting to keep the United States out of foreign entanglements does not mean that you can never use the military in order to accomplish the American people’s objectives,” Vance continued. “I think the president has actually done the responsible thing here, which is to try to ensure that world energy markets, despite Iranian terrorism, continue to get that flow of oil and gas.”

That “flow,” Vance failed to mention, has resulted in the American people spending over $100 billion more at the gas pump since the war began seven months ago. (He also neglected to mention that oil was flowing just fine before Trump started his war of choice.)

“The alternative here, which is the United States effectively says to the Middle East, ‘You’re on your own,’ would mean necessarily a worldwide energy crisis,” Vance said, echoing his previous comments that Americans should be grateful gas prices aren’t higher.

The interview went even further off the rails when Vance was asked about his message to voters leading into the midterm elections this fall.

“Give us another couple of years,” Vance said. “Do you want to reelect the people who have made substantial progress, accepting there is still a lot of work to be done, or do you want to go back to the people who caused the problem in the first place?”

If Vance is trying to engender support for his historically unpopular party come November, “it could be worse” and “can we have redo?” are not exactly inspiring rallying cries.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Vance said.

Republicans appear to be listening to the White House rather than the president.

Conservatives seem to have completely dodged Donald Trump’s midterm advice since the Republican Midterm Convention last week, during which the president told his party to promise $5,000 government handouts and act as if he’s on the ballot.

An analysis of more than a million social media messages conducted by The Washington Post found that conservative candidates across the country have opted to stick with their own messages rather than further ingratiate themselves in Trump’s orbit.

Mentions of Trump by Republican candidates online have almost halved since January, dropping from mentions in 15 percent of posts to just 9 percent in September. Some hopeful office-seekers have even stripped their websites and campaign materials of Trump’s name, attempting to split themselves from the president’s sinking reputation.

That’s the advice that the White House offered in July, when staffers explicitly encouraged midterm-bound Republicans to break from Trump in an effort to save their election chances.

Republicans already had little to campaign on ahead of the November race, but one right-wing senator told Punchbowl Wednesday that Trump was “putting a noose around all of our necks” by continuing to escalate his trade wars so close to Election Day.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll published late last month suggested that the president’s influence is waning: Just 13 percent of Americans strongly approve of him—compared to 23 percent in a 2025 YouGov poll this time last year.

Top issues impacting Trump’s popularity include the seemingly endless Iran war, the rising cost of living, an economy and supply chain thrown out of whack by the president’s reckless tariffs, the cost of health care, and the encroachment of AI and the industry’s data centers in American communities—which Trump has unequivocally backed—a hot topic.

Republican attitudes toward Trump have also changed, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. Just 35 percent of surveyed conservatives said they “strongly approved” of Trump’s job during his second term. In the same poll, 41 percent of registered voters said that they would vote for a Democratic candidate if the presidential election were conducted today.

President Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center saga continued Wednesday, the day after a federal judge unceremoniously knocked down his latest bid to add his own name to President John F. Kennedy’s memorial venue.

NBC News reported Tuesday that the center’s chief financial officer, Donna Kauranen, resigned from her position right before Trump’s handpicked board of trustees (chaired by none other than Trump himself) voted to shut down the venue indefinitely, ostensibly for repairs and renovations.

Now Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, a Kennedy Center trustee and the plaintiff in the court battle against emblazoning the venue with Trump’s name, is requesting an emergency hearing to challenge the sudden closure, calling it “unexplained and unlawful.” Beatty filed her motion for an emergency hearing Wednesday afternoon, arguing that the closure violates a prior court order that not only blocked the name change but also prevented the center from closing for renovations.

Trump’s allies at the center have claimed that the performing arts venue is in dire financial and structural straits and needs the president’s name on it to stay afloat. In a June court filing, the administration wrote that “without the name ‘Trump’ on the Building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated.”

Still, U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled Tuesday in no uncertain terms that the Kennedy Center could not inscribe the words “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” on the side of the building, nor anywhere else on the historic grounds. “Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote.

In a classic if-I-can’t-have-it-nobody-can tantrum, the president immediately made a “fucking crazy” call to the board to scream at Beatty. He then unleashed his anger on social media.

“The Board of The Kennedy Center today agreed, almost unanimously, to close the Building for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction. The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”

In the day since the board voted to close the center, new fencing has appeared around the building. Trump has previously threatened to demolish the center entirely if he doesn’t get his way, demonstrating yet again that if Trump isn’t in the spotlight, the show doesn’t go on.