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- [00:03]
A
Hey, everybody. Welcome to here's the scoop of NBC News. I'm Yasmin Bisugin. It's President's Day, and we thought we would talk about a story that we haven't had time to discuss in depth here on the podcast. How President Trump, more than any other president in recent history, has been putting his mark on the White House and on Washington. In less than a year, the president has gilded the Oval Office, paved over the Rose Garden, demolished the East Wing, and put his name on the Kennedy center, and more, all while fighting legal battles against some of these moves. But is his renovation fever really, quote, unprecedented? What else could he have in store? And is there anything that's going to stop him? I want to bring in two people who know the White House and US Presidents better than most. Anyone out there, NBC chief Washington correspondent Andrea Mitchell and NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss. Andrea? Michael. Hi, guys.
- [01:00]
B
Hey.
- [01:01]
C
Hi.
- [01:01]
B
Hi, Yasmin.
- [01:03]
A
Great to have you.
- [01:04]
C
Thank you.
- [01:05]
A
Andrea, I want to start with you. Of the things that the president has already done to change the face of the White House and Washington, gilding the Oval Office, paving over the Rose Garden, demolishing the East Wing, and putting his name on the Kennedy center, which surprised you the most?
- [01:23]
B
The ballroom. The ballroom is the biggest. I mean, I was surprised by the Kennedy center because it was so outside of anything it had cared about in the first term. But the ballroom is going to be something that really can't be torn down. It's enormous. And the latest renditions are just astounding. So, you know, you've lost the big oak trees from the South Lawn. Things have been torn down. They can't be replaced. But the Rose Garden can be unpaved and replanted. But the ballroom is going to be very hard to get rid of.
- [02:01]
A
Michael, what about you? What has surprised you the most so far?
- [02:04]
C
Yeah, I vote with Andrea. I think the tearing down of the East Wing, also, that it was done so abruptly, without much public announcement or comment or consultation with Congress or very many other people. There was a little consultation, but it was not too wide. There are historical precedents. William McKinley wanted to make the White House three times as big as it was with the idea that after the time of the Spanish American War, the US Was a global power and deserved a White House that was more in tune with that. Same thing with Harry Truman in 1946. Cold War United States, now a power that was the world's only superpower at the time. He wanted to radically expand the West Wing, to have A lot more offices. But in both the cases of McKinley and Truman, there was enormous pushback from the public and from Congress. Why was that? That was because we've got a tradition in America that goes all the way back to George Washington, which is, even at the time of Washington, George Washington, this is a pretty palatial mansion, but it is much smaller than a lot of other presidential and royal residences around the world. And that expresses the idea that even the president is not a king. So I think that's why there's been a lot of pushback to Donald Trump's idea of making the East Wing so large.
- [03:31]
A
Can we talk a little bit more about Truman, because you've written about this as well. What was the impetus for Truman's renovation and what came of it, both financially and otherwise?
- [03:44]
C
The impetus was that by 1947, the White House was falling down. A lot of presidents, like Theodore Roosevelt and others, had done very hasty renovations, and they cut beams in the ceilings. So as a result, by 1947, when Truman had been there for two years, a piano leg, for instance, went through the floor. And Truman joked with his friends, if this goes much further, people will be sitting in the East Room, and suddenly the ceiling will cave in and the naked president will be there in a bathtub, falling into the audience. And so they said, well, maybe we don't want that. So what Truman did was he said, we've got to do something. And he did it in his own way, which was pretty methodical. He was an old member of Congress. He consulted members of Congress, did this pretty publicly. He had drawings of various scenarios, and most of them said the cheapest way to shore up the White House would be to tear the whole thing down and build an imitation White House with modern steel structure and air conditioning and modern national security provisions and so forth. And Truman said, no, I don't want the outside walls of the White House to come down, because especially after the dangers of World War II and at the time of the Cold War, the idea of the White House, for any reason, being turned to rubble is going to be very upsetting to people. So this was a 1952 imitation of the original White House. The outer walls were kept, and almost everything inside was scooped out. There are these great pictures of, you know, people in bulldozers inside the White House, which is just a cavernous area where they haven't done the structure yet. And the result was that if you go into the White House nowadays, as both of you have, it is still a 1952 structure put inside the old one. Donald Trump, for instance, has been complaining about the fact that some of the bathrooms for the Lincoln Bedroom and the President's bedroom are basically 1952, which by his standards are not very posh. And he's had those brought up to sort of luxurious 20, 25 standards.
- [05:57]
A
Where did Truman stay during the renovation? Did he remain inside the White House?
- [06:01]
C
No, he moved into Blair House across the street. And it was a big personal sacrifice because he was only going to serve one elected term, he knew. So he deprived himself of those years of living in the White House, lived in the much smaller Blair House across the street, used the Oval Office. But Truman loved architecture and took an interest in this a little bit like Donald Trump, and looked at the changes and sort of supervised them. But the difference between that and what Donald Trump is doing with the East Wing is two things especially. Number one, Truman had commissions to look at it, teams of architects, different scenarios aired in public, lot of consultation with Congress, which funded it. And in Donald Trump's case, this was abrupt. It's being by the best information we have, privately funded, and there has been fairly minimal consultation. He's consulted a group of people who were there to preserve the look of the White House in Washington, but it is filled with people whom he has appointed.
- [07:03]
A
Andrew, you mentioned how the renovations and the demolition of the East Wing has really been kind of the most surprising thing to you. But it certainly was not the first thing that the President changed about the White House. That was, in fact, the Rose Garden, in which he turned the Rose Garden into essentially a patio, got rid of all of that beautiful grass and greenery. That Rose Garden was actually designed and put into place by former First Lady Jackie Kennedy.
- [07:27]
B
Exactly.
- [07:28]
A
Do you see this as more symbolic and or practical cause? The President says it's all about practicality.
- [07:34]
B
He keeps talking about five inch heels and people, you know, he said that the ladies, the women were, you know, ruining their shoes when they came out for these events in the Rose Garden. People are so excited when they come to the Rose Garden. I don't think they care about their heels, number one. Number two, the reporters and we used to have news conferences frequently in the Rose Garden, going back to the Reagan years and actually with Bill Clinton and bringing out Supreme Court nominees and such. So they were important moments in the Rose Garden on nice days. And I don't know too many White House working reporters who wear five inch heels. He's talking about donors, and so he seems really focused on with that and with the ballroom also talking about people walking to these big tents that they were erecting on the South Lawn to have larger state dinners. Well, I've been to state dinners. I've had that privilege in the past. And there used to be 120 people in the State Dining Room with the portrait of Abraham Lincoln looking down. And you're invited to a state dinner for a visiting leader. And it feels so special, you know, that it's beyond a privilege. You know, these are moments, and they're exclusive. So to think about having 1,000 people in the ballroom, there's probably room for a dance floor, but there are these enormous steps going up from what is now East Executive in the latest vendoring, huge columns, and it looks nothing like the White House. And the architect testified to balance it. As every homeowner knows, once you start renovating, it never ends. They're putting a second floor on the ballroom to restore the offices of the East Wing and the theater and other things. And then they're now going to put a second floor on the West Wing colonnade for balance. Cause otherwise you'd have a lopsided White House from the front. And that just makes it a much more massive structure.
- [09:32]
A
I mean, the entire renovation of both the East Wing, along with the Rose Garden, have obviously been major undertakings. And you talk about how it doesn't necessarily seem practical. It does seem more symbolic. That's what I'm hearing from you. When we talk about, though, Michael, the Rose Garden, and I mentioned Jackie Kennedy. I mean, she was also kind of a notorious renovator as well. Do you see the president taking a page out of. Out of her book here?
- [09:59]
C
A president can do whatever he wants, and so can a first lady, as long as she and the president are on good terms. And, you know, American Congresses and others have had the chance all these years to pass laws saying a president cannot interfere with the design of the White House. That is true of a lot of federal buildings in the United States. They never did because they felt that the tradition was so strong that no president would dare make a radical change. Truman, for instance, we were talking about. Truman added the balcony that has been on the back of the White House on the South Portico ever since. That caused a lot of objection at the time by purists who said it should be in line with history. But even despite all that, you know, Congress has said, do what you want. You know, in the year 2026, if a president wanted to take the state floors of the White House, which are now a museum with historic furniture and artifacts and paintings, and turn that into a roller rink to a great extent. He can do that legally.
- [11:02]
A
Now that would be kind of cool. I do have to say I'm not recommending it.
- [11:06]
B
Please don't suggest it.
- [11:07]
A
No, no, I would be on board with that. I mean, just think about the press gaggle that would happen at the roller rink. We're going to take a very quick break. More with Andrea and Michael when we're back. Stay with us. And hey, while you have a minute, why not click that Follow or Subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to. Here's the scoop. That way we'll be right there in your feed tomorrow and you'll never miss an episode.
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D
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A
Here's the SupermanBC news is back. I'm Yasmin Vasugin here with Andrea Mitchell and Michael Beschloss. Andrea, you have seen so many of these renovations up close and personally and what I mean by that is President Obama, President Clinton, President Trump, President Biden, all of them come in and change something about the White House, even down to the color of the chair in the Oval Office. Can you talk a little bit about the differences that we have seen in the design choices from these different presidents and or the influences of their first ladies?
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B
And that gets to exactly what Michael was just talking about. Usually it's interior decoration, it's a newly designed carpet, it's the drapes. I mean, there have been some questions of taste. Hillary Clinton was criticized for bringing her interior decorator from Little Rock, who had been the designer for the Dillard department stores, Cocky Hawkersmith. Cocky Hawkersmith.
- [14:10]
A
Oh, that is quite a name.
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B
And they redid the Lincoln bedroom in Victoria. Victorian scalloped velvet drapes. And maybe it was more Mary Todd Lincoln than what you'd think of for Abraham Lincoln. But in any case, I mean, it was a lot of different patterns, but it was not completely out of character. There was a redesign by Melania Trump of the small dining room downstairs in a more modern way on the first floor of the West Wing. And that was very tasteful. Every Ferris family redoes the upstairs. And the President famously complained about the bathrooms. A lot other people have complained about the bathrooms. I've been upstairs, as Michael has, to the family area and that yellow oval room. And it was very beautiful. But nothing has ever equaled this. I think it's all about his legacy. And he sees himself as a builder. You know, once he was meeting not that long ago with the oil executives after the Venezuelan extraction of Maduro. And in his first meeting with the oil executives, he was in the East Room, and there was a window behind him. And he got up, walked to the window, looked out at the hole in the ground, which is the ballroom, and he said, what a beautiful sight. And most people looked at that hole in the ground and thought it was thought about maybe not the oak trees in the East Room, the East Wing rather, and all sorts of things that had been there before. But to him, it's beautiful. And he pays so much attention that the morning he was in Florida, the morning of what we didn't know was going to be the Venezuela strike, and he was, of course, up all night, most of the night, with his national security team. That morning, knowing that this was about to happen, he went with the press pool following him in the motorcade to a marble warehouse to choose personally choose the marble for the ballroom.
- [16:12]
A
Can you explain, Michael, why it is that the White House is not better protected from its Tenants from the presidents and the first ladies. I mean, you said earlier, essentially whatever the presidents and first ladies essentially want to be done to the White House, they can do. Why are there not better protections in place? I know they're also exempt from the National Historic Preservation Act.
- [16:31]
C
Right. It's because there was never a huge threat. For instance, a lot of the protections of our political system that were passed in the wake of Watergate came because Richard Nixon pressed the edge of the envelope of our system and tried to violate some things that were pretty important. Members of Congress said we'd better get those into law to protect our system in the future. Well, this has not happened to this degree in all of American history. I suspect that if there is public objection to what happens with the East Wing and some of these other things that we've talked about, there will be an effort by some future Congress to pass sanctions against this might be signed by some future president, but the cow will be out of the barn as far as people who do not like this are concerned.
- [17:19]
B
And Yasmin, I wanted to just ask, maybe Michael has an insight into this. I was just talking to a British official about the problems they're having right now in their politics, partly because of the Epstein thing and a lot of other things. And he said, well, the problem is that we always had the good chap theory of governance, that people would be wise and wouldn't do bad things like the royals would not do bad things like the prince who used to be Andrew. And so I think Michael may have some insights into this, that our founders, in creating our Constitution and our norms, sort of assumed that presidents would be wise and would show the judgment of George Washington.
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C
Absolutely. And they knew that George Washington would be the first president of the United States. So the result was that our founders in Philadelphia said, we disagree about some of these things, so let's just be vague in the Constitution and let George Washington hash it out and set an example. As a result, more than two centuries later, for instance, the presidency is only vaguely described in the Constitution. There are very few sanctions against presidents who misbehave, such as impeachment. And the result is the presidency, especially with the Supreme Court ruling of recent years, is probably a lot more powerful than the founders ever intended.
- [18:45]
A
There's also, I think, which is in line with what we're talking about, the question of who's voting the bill and the conflict of of interest there. With all of that, the president said he secured the money to the rebuilding of the East Wing. And in addition to rebuilding the east wing with the ballroom. There's also a bunker that is going to be underneath. There is a list of corporate and private donors that are ponying up for this, including, by the way, NBC's parent company, Comcast. Is this funding model, Andrea, problematic?
- [19:15]
B
Absolutely. I have never seen norms broken down as rapidly as in this term. This was not the case in Trump 1. If you recall, the emoluments clause was raised when he wanted to have a G20 meeting at the Doral, which would have been his resort in Florida. And he would have benefited from all of the payments from the summit gatherings. And there was such a ruckus in the press and in Congress that he backed off. Well, in this case, there doesn't seem to be any firewall at all. He didn't this time have his private attorney come out and say the president will never invest in such and such his sons are his trustees rather than blind trustees as most past officials have had. And we're not told who the donors are. You know, this was not a public statement of the donors to the ballroom.
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A
What happens, Michael, if the money falls.
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C
Through, it's probably legal because once again, our Congress did not make provision for this and did not save us if Americans are rightly worried about this. Harry Truman, for instance, when he did the balcony that I mentioned in the late 1940s cost $16,000 and Truman actually used it out of money that he had saved in his White House household account. So he didn't have to go to Congress for that. You can argue that one round or flat. But when he renovated the White House, gutted the insides except for those four walls during his full term in office, that was funded by Congress and it was very much in touch with the leaders of Congress and they kept very tight purse strings to the point that when we entered the Korean War and there was a lot of inflation, we did not have the money to make that renovation as nice as Truman intended it. And so the result was that they had to rush and they had to cut some corners.
- [21:14]
A
We are going to take a very quick break and when we come back, Trump's rebranding drive and what the next year could have in store.
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D
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- [22:56]
A
And we are back with here's the scoop of NBC News with Andrea Mitchell and Michael Beschloss talking about the rebranding of Washington as Trumptown. Andrea, I want to talk about the rebranding here because people here in New York, we are used to seeing Trump everywhere, right? We're seeing, we see Trump Tower, we see Trump apartment buildings. But he is doing to D.C. it seems, what he has done to New York or at least trying to do it. You have seen said that the president has a quote, unquote edifice complex. Andrea, what do you think the end game is here for the president?
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B
You've got the Institute of Peace, renamed the Trump Institute of Peace. And basically that is a building that was privately owned by a nonprofit think tank. It was taken over at gunpoint by federal marshals on a Friday night, went to court and the judge basically said on the Monday that there was nothing she could do because the lawyer from the federal government said, well, we've already made it the Labor Department. And then of course, his name was put on it. So now it's the Trump Institute of Peace. And so that think tank is gone. All those people were fired. And that happened sort of under the Doge rubric when Elon Musk was still around. But the Trump Kennedy center is certainly a renaming that has caused a lot of alarm in many circles. The original intent was this is a memorial to John F. Kennedy, a slain American president like The Lincoln, the Jefferson. It is not to be named after a living president. It's not to be changed, and the board is not to be dismissed. That's in legal dispute. It's being challenged. So all of this is very much not in line with what Jackie Kennedy wanted. And now he's talking about Dulles Airport. That's an Eero Saarinen building and renaming that for himself. And there is this report, it's somewhat in dispute that in a negotiation with Chuck Schumer, who doesn't have control over this at all, over whether or not this multi billion dollar project that's already spent $4 billion and is an open hole and has thousands of jobs at stake to build the tunnel between New York and New Jersey. And he says he wants first a commitment to rename Penn Station for himself, which is being rebuilt, and that Schumer should somehow agree to this, which is outside of his purview. So it just shows, I think, getting back to your original question, he seems to see himself with these namings, the Institute of Peace, that everything has to be Trump.
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A
Right.
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B
And that it has to be gold and it has to be monumental.
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A
So, Michael, there are a number of airports that are named after presidents, JFK obviously being one of them. The President has said, as Andrea talked about, wanting to rename Dulles after him. Is there a real argument to be made to not rename Dulles after the President, considering how JFK was named?
- [25:48]
C
Yeah. John Kennedy had given his life in the service of his country in the back of a bloody limousine. That's why Idlewild Airport was named after John F. Kennedy. And it was after he was dead and a national martyr. That's not very much of a parallel, but at the same time, you asked if there was a precedent. Well, Dwight Eisenhower was president at the time that what is now Dulles Airport was being finished. He wanted to name it for George Marshall, one of the great heroes of World War II, who had grown up near where Dulles Airport is in Virginia. And. And he was all set to announce this as Marshall Airport when his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, died. And in the Cabinet Room, they said, what'll we name after Secretary Dulles? And they all looked at a model of this new airport that Eisenhower wanted named for Marshall. So it's not sacrosanct. And if anyone who doesn't like it or has a disagreement with this had better go to Congress and say, in the future, you'd better get some more control, because this is a federal airport. President can do whatever he wants. And you can argue about the decision, but that's what the law says. So is this going to be a government of laws or a government of men and women? We'll see.
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B
What may be the most permanent and shocking change will be the Arc de Trump or the Arc de Triomphe. He's now said that it'll be two.
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A
Play on the Arc de Triomphe.
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B
And it's because he saw the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees on Bastille Day in 2017, in his first term. He loved it. He very much wants this art and he wants it to be towering over the Lincoln Memorial. So it's to be 250ft high. The tallest buildings, office buildings in Washington are about 160ft. Most generally, the zoning is for 130ft, but there are places on Pennsylvania Avenue where they can be 160ft tall.
- [27:46]
A
Well, nothing can be higher than the Washington Memorial. Right.
- [27:50]
B
Well, this is now going to be 250ft high. So it'll be larger than the Lincoln. And across from the Lincoln, looking towards the Arlington Cemetery, the entranceway from Virginia at the Memorial Bridge, if it is built. I've seen three renderings that the White House put out. One has got a lot of gold. They are. It's just enormous. And the fact that it will be so large. And Michael is a real student of this. The original thought of the JFK eternal flame is that it would be visible from the Lincoln.
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C
Right.
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B
Because it's on a. There's a mound, it's on a rise. And it won't be visible once the Arc to Trump is built, if it is built. So that's one of the concerns that people have made.
- [28:41]
A
Michael Beschloss, Andrea Mitchell, thank you guys both.
- [28:44]
B
Thank you, Yasmin. Happy President's Day.
- [28:47]
C
Thank you. Loved it.
- [28:48]
A
Thank you, guys. And that's gonna do it for us at here's the scoop of NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vesugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, we'll see you tomorrow.
- [29:12]
I
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