Inside Trump’s Mad Dash to Renovate Washington
6/1/202637 min
In the lead-up to America’s 250th anniversary, President Trump is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a major renovation of the nation’s capitol.
David A. Fahrenthold, who has been investigating how the projects have come together, takes listeners on a walking tour of the sites being remade.
Guest: David A. Fahrenthold, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, writing primarily about nonprofit organizations.
Background reading:
- See what’s wrong with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
- A no-bid contract is turning the pool blue.
Photo: Allison Robbert for The New York Times
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
[gentle music] I'm Winna Lu. I write the game Connections, one of the puzzles from New York Times Games. And I love horror movies, I love my dog, and I love trying to trick you.
Speaker 10:09
I'm Tracy Bennett. I get to pick the Wordle word every day, which is not as easy as it sounds. A fun fact about me is that I am descended from a witch who was put on trial in Salem.
Speaker 20:20
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Speaker 30:30
[horn honking] Do you have a minute? We make a podcast called The Daily.
Speaker 40:36
Sure.
Speaker 30:37
[pensive music] We- we're in town looking at all of the renovations and construction work that the president's undertaken, the Reflecting Pool, Lafayette Park, and the arch that's gonna be built behind us. And we're just trying to figure out what people are thinking about it.
Speaker 50:52
I think it's a mess. [laughs] I really, I'm really disappointed because we're here for my granddaughter's 16th birthday.
Speaker 30:59
Uh-huh.
Speaker 50:59
She wanted to come to DC to see all the stuff, and I really thought that pool would be finished.
Speaker 61:04
Um, I'm very sad- No, we aren't ... that this year, our trip, they're renovating the pool because, um, all the other years before, they saw very nice views from the pool, and we couldn't see it. Yeah, we should've been allowed to see it.
Speaker 11:15
Can I say about the White House?
Speaker 31:16
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.
Speaker 11:18
Stop, guys.
Speaker 61:19
Hey.
Speaker 31:19
What do you think about the Reflecting Pool?
Speaker 11:21
We're getting interviewed. Not you.
Speaker 61:22
[laughs] We think that it should be open to us.
Speaker 31:23
This is The Daily. [pensive music] In the lead-up to America's 250th birthday this