The making of Trump’s presidential library

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Making of Trump’s Presidential Library

Podcast: Post Reports (The Washington Post)
Date: December 15, 2025
Host: Colby Biechowitz
Guest: Michael Kranish, Political Investigative Reporter, The Washington Post

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the planning and controversies surrounding former President Donald Trump's proposed presidential library in Miami. Host Colby Biechowitz speaks with reporter Michael Kranish to discuss the historical purpose of presidential libraries, funding models, oversight concerns, and why Trump’s library could present a uniquely personalized—and possibly contentious—version of recent American history.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Historical Context and Purpose of Presidential Libraries

• Presidential libraries traditionally serve as public research centers to house the documents, artifacts, and records of a president’s administration.

• They are intended as monuments to a president's legacy, with material owned by the public, and managed by the National Archives.

  • Kranish: “The papers are the property of the public. They're not the property of the president.” [01:49]

• The model has evolved; most recent example is President Obama’s “presidential center,” which relies heavily on digitized materials and private funding.

2. Funding Models: From Public to Private

• Initially, libraries had partial government support. However, the trend has shifted toward privately funded construction and operation.

  • The National Archives wishes to limit its share of the funding burden.
  • Recent libraries (e.g., Obama’s) are built with large sums raised via private foundations.

• Trump’s library is following this newer, private model:

  • $50 million raised from undisclosed donors via the Trump Library Foundation.
  • Some funds reportedly come from legal settlements with media organizations.
  • Florida donated valuable downtown Miami land for the library.
  • Lack of public disclosure on donors raises ethical questions about influence.

• Legislation in Response:

  • The “Presidential Library Anti Corruption Act,” supported only by Democrats so far, seeks to ban fundraising during a president’s term and limits donations from certain entities for a set period after leaving office.
  • Currently, "there's no guardrails around where the funding comes from." [07:02]

3. Oversight and Control Over Exhibition Content

• National Archives maintains control over official records, but not necessarily over exhibits in privately funded, independently operated museums.
• Historical precedent: The Nixon Library’s Watergate exhibit was revised for accuracy by National Archives oversight.
• If Trump’s library operates completely separately, “the museum there would have no obligation to work with the National Archives ... So Trump could tell whatever story he wants about the history of his own election.” [07:51]
• Obama’s center consulted historians for exhibit review, but it is unclear whether the Trump library will implement any independent scholarly oversight.

4. Controversial Aspects of Trump’s Planned Library

• Location:

  • Prime, valuable land in downtown Miami (appraised at $60–300 million) granted via Miami Dade College and the State of Florida.
  • Approval process lacked transparency and is being legally contested due to controversy over the land’s transfer.

• Content and Vision:

  • Details remain vague; public statements emphasize grandeur and "iconic" status.

  • Eric Trump (Board member, Trump Library Foundation) has suggested the inclusion of a “fake news wing” as a major exhibit—an unprecedented move in presidential libraries:

    • Eric Trump, jokingly responding to whether there’d be a fake news wing:
      “I hadn’t thought of that, but that’s beautiful.” [13:58]
    • He elaborated: "I actually think that'd be a great exhibit about how dishonest these people are and how they will lie, cheat, and steal." [14:05]

  • Trump has claimed that Qatar will donate a Boeing 747 (purportedly Air Force One) to the library for display.

5. Ramifications for Historical Narrative and Legacy

• Without meaningful oversight, there’s potential for the library to omit or distort controversial aspects of Trump's presidency (e.g., impeachments, the 2020 election).
• Kranish draws parallels to the Jefferson Memorial, noting how presidential monuments and libraries inherently reflect the perspectives and intentions of those who control them:
  • “Time and time again, there are people who want a certain story to be told about a former president ... sometimes there's one interpretation, and then later on, people come on and say, you know, I have a new take on this history and I found new things.” [15:15]
• The way Trump’s library presents events could shape how future generations view his presidency.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Eric Trump on the library’s ambitions:

  • “I can promise you it's going to be the greatest shrine to the greatest president this country has ever had.” [00:18]

• Michael Kranish on public ownership:

  • “The papers are the property of the public. They're not the property of the president.” [01:49]

• Michael Kranish on oversight:

  • “If Trump constructs his library or center entirely funded by his private foundation, the museum there would have no obligation to work with the National Archives ... Trump could tell whatever story he wants.” [07:51]

• Eric Trump on the possibility of a 'fake news wing':

  • "I hadn't thought of that, but that's beautiful ... I actually think that'd be a great exhibit about how dishonest these people are and how they will lie, cheat, and steal." [13:58–14:05]

• Kranish on the parallel to other presidential monuments:

  • “There are monuments here that people will disagree ... sometimes there's one interpretation, and then later on, people come on and say, you know, I have a new take on this history and I found new things.” [15:15]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:02–01:30 — Introduction to the history and evolving purpose of presidential libraries.
• 01:49–03:44 — Biechowitz & Kranish detail ownership of presidential records and funding transitions.
• 05:29–07:02 — Discussion on the timing and transparency of fundraising and bipartisan concerns.
• 07:19–08:47 — Oversight gaps and historical examples of fraudulent exhibits corrected by National Archives.
• 12:00–13:15 — Background on the Miami land deal and the ongoing legal contest.
• 13:31–14:55 — Insights into the possible content and vision of Trump’s library and the “fake news wing.”
• 14:55–16:18 — Broader implications for history and legacy; parallels to other historical monuments.

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Conclusion

The episode captures the unique controversies and questions raised by Donald Trump’s plans for his presidential library. With little regulatory oversight on funding, content, or scholarly review, the library could become a highly personalized monument rather than a balanced historical resource—possibly influencing how future Americans remember Trump’s presidency. The conversation draws on historical precedents to remind listeners that presidential legacies are not just a reflection of fact, but also of those who get to tell the story.

Transcript

[Colby Biechowitz]

Historically, presidential libraries have been used as sort of research hubs to house documents and artifacts from a president's time in the White House. They're also a monument to a president's legacy. The planning for President Trump's library is well underway.

[Eric Trump]

I can promise you it's going to be the greatest shrine to the greatest president this country has ever had. And I promise you, I mean, it's going to be the greatest structure ever created for a president by far. It's going to be the greatest library ever envisioned.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Eric Trump, Trump's oldest son. He was giving an interview on a conservative leaning podcast back in the fall. Eric Trump was talking about the creation of his father's presidential library. Trump has raised $50 million from undisclosed donors to build it. And the state of Florida has gifted Trump acres of land in downtown Miami for it. What's less clear is what will be in the library. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Colby ekowitz. It's Monday, December 15th. Today, I speak with investigative reporter Michael Kranish about Trump's plans for his presidential library and why some historians worry that it could misrepresent this moment in history by telling the story only through Trump's eyes. Michael, thank you so much for joining me.

[Michael Kranish]

Thanks for having me.

[Colby Biechowitz]

So, Michael, you reported over the weekend on President Trump's plans for his presidential library in Miami. And I want to get into all the ways that Trump wants to memorialize his presidency. But first, like, what has historically been the point of a presidential library? How have past presidents used them?

[Michael Kranish]

Well, I think it started with fdr. He had all these papers. What do we do with them? And there was this idea that we'd store them, have a library, make them available to the public. So there's been about maybe 15 presidential libraries so far, and they're all done pretty differently. But the bottom line is, according to a court ruling that happened some time ago, the papers are the property of the public. They're not the property of the president.

[Colby Biechowitz]

So when you say presidential papers, what does that encompass?

[Michael Kranish]

So they don't have to be literally papers. A lot of this obviously, would be electronic communication. Presidential libraries also have artifacts of the presidency. So there's a mass of material, but the papers belong to the public. So the National Archives is the one that controls these papers. So for the libraries have been the repository. For example, at the LBJ Library, you can go in, they've got tons and tons of papers from that presidency. Robert Caro, the historian, has written a Multi volume biography of LBJ famously says he goes there and he wants to turn every page. So that's the image that a lot of people probably have of a presidential library, but it's changed. So under President Obama's library formulation, it's not really a library at all. He is building what he calls a presidential center. They put aside $5 million to help the National Archives digitize Obama's papers, but basically it's a presidential center. You're not going to go there to research his presidency. You do that online.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Okay, so as I understand it, a presidential library, a place to keep all the archives and documents and artifacts from a presidency, but that is owned by the National Archives, not by the President himself. So who's paying for these libraries?

[Michael Kranish]

It's done differently everywhere. The National Archives says that they spent a fourth of their budget regarding presidential libraries. They want to sort of stop that cost from growing even more. It's only recently that there's been this idea that if this really has to be privately done, there is money that the National Archives spends to help on these other libraries, but they're trying to sort of get out of that business, which may seem contrary to the public purpose that people see of these libraries and presidential centers.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Okay, Michael, so what you're saying is these presidential libraries have long had at least some part of it be funded by the government. But in recent years, we've shifted to having these libraries be exclusively privately funded. How did that start?

[Michael Kranish]

So Obama started what people consider a new model of presidential libraries or centers. He has a private foundation. It's raised about $1.6 billion. Might raise more. That's an awful lot more than other centers and libraries have raised. And that money is going to basically build this facility on a 19 acre campus in Chicago. So that opens in June of next year. That model is now likely what Trump will use, particularly since they're fundraising through a private entity, the Trump Library Foundation. So far, they've raised $50 million and spent 6 million. Trump had said that some of his money has come from settlements against media organizations like his lawsuits against CBS and abc. Because it's a private foundation, they don't need to disclose where the money's coming from. It could come from companies or others that have interest before the government. And Trump is doing this while he's still president. So there's folks who say, you know, that's not appropriate. But Congress has not provided money for building these centers. They provide money to maintain existing libraries in some ways, but in some ways they've created this situation where they say you have to build a presidential library center if you want one, there's no lawsuit, you've got to construct one. So of course there's going to be, you know, criticism of how money is raised by whichever party's not in power, but they're not providing that money.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Is it unusual that a president would start raising money for their library this soon in their term? Was President Obama raising money for his center during his time in the White House?

[Michael Kranish]

I don't think Obama was raising much, if any, money before it was known that he was gonna build the center. He was there for two terms. It is obviously easier to raise money while you're president. Cuz then people maybe they're trying to influence you or they just, you know, they just wanna do it while you're president. Now the example of how this can be so hard is President Biden. President Biden to build some kind of library or center. His filing says he's raised $4 million. That is just almost nothing in this business of building centers. When you look at Obama's $1.6 billion that he's raised and what Trump's doing. So right now Biden is going to be talking about this, but it's harder to raise money after you've left office. So for Trump, he is able to raise more money while he's in office. He's doing this for the construction of the East Wing, for example, his ballroom. The ballroom and the library is sort of analogous to that. And that this is a huge project. And these questions come up about using private funds while he's still president the way Trump is doing it. I mean, there's no laws that people are saying have been broken. The Democrats have introduced what they call the Presidential Library Anti Corruption Act. Under that act, it would ban fundraising until after a president leaves office, except from nonprofits. And it would require a two year delay after a president leaves before donations can be accepted from foreign nationals, foreign governments, lobbyists, individuals seeking pardons, and federal contractors. So you can see that this would be a way to avoid these conflicts of interest or appearance of conflicts and so forth. So far, only Democrats have supported that legislation. So it doesn't seem to be going anywhere in this Congress.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Okay, so as of right now, there's no guardrails around where the funding comes from. And that's what the Democrats are suggesting should change. But is there anything in place that acts as kind of an oversight of what actually gets put into these libraries, like what piece of history and how.

[Michael Kranish]

History is remembered well, the presidential papers, the artifacts, those are all overseen by the National Archives, and that won't change. They'll probably be at the national archives here in D.C. not at the library. But it's possible they could be at the Trump facility, if that's what he decides. That's how some earlier libraries have been built, also the museums, and that's key here. Like in the Nixon Library, years ago, they had a Watergate exhibit that said Watergate was just a conspiracy against Nixon. The National Archives came in, put an archivist there in charge and said, you can't have an exhibit like that. It has to be factual. So the library ended up changing at the direction of this new Archives appointed director. And that factual exhibit about Watergate is what's in the library today. But if Trump constructs his library or center entirely funded by his private foundation, the museum there would have no obligation to work with the National Archives, who in other cases might have had oversight to keep things accurate from an independent point of view. So Trump could tell whatever story he wants about the history of his own election. And maybe he would say the 2020 election was stolen, as he had say, which of course is false. I did ask former President Obama's spokesperson about this and how that works at the Obama center, which sort of set the model for this. And they said they've used historians to come in and review their museum and so forth. We don't know if there'll be independent historians who would do that in the Trump Library case.

[Colby Biechowitz]

That's a great place to pause, Michael, because after the break, I want to talk to you more about what we do know about Trump's plans for his library. We'll be right back.

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[Colby Biechowitz]

So Michael, we mentioned earlier that Trump's library is going to be in Miami. Obviously Florida is a very friendly state to Trump. It's where he has Mar a Lago and West Palm Beach. What do we know about this choice of location? Kind of why, where?

[Michael Kranish]

How so? This is a 2.6 acre site. It's right in downtown Miami, right next to a place called the Freedom Tower, a very prominent location so what happened? There was. There was a meeting in September by the Miami Dade College, which is a state institution, and they had a notice in the Miami Herald, and it very vaguely said there'll be a meeting about a land transfer. Didn't say it was about Trump, didn't say anything about what it was, and they unanimously approved. The board of trustees approved giving this 2.6 acre parcel to the state, which then promptly gave it to the Trump Library Foundation. That transfer is being contested in the courts. But the bottom line is this property is their various estimates. It was appraised at more than $60 million. Some real estate folks told us it might be worth More than $300 million. And Eric Trump himself has said it's one of the most valuable pieces of property in Florida. So no doubt it's a very valuable gift to start off with, to have this. And from my college's standpoint, there are other campuses across the country that do have an association with the presidential, so it's not unheard of. But there's some people who say, you know, this should have been more thoroughly vetted. You know, this site doesn't make sense. So there was a lot of controversy over it. The bottom line is the board of trustees, after being sued, voted a second time unanimously to give this land. But that is still being contested in the courts.

[Colby Biechowitz]

What else do we know, if anything, about Trump's plans for his library? You know, with Obama's, it's opening in June. We know it's going to have an athletic facility and an auditorium, a garden. Do we have any sense at all of what will be in Trump's library?

[Michael Kranish]

Well, we don't really know exactly what he's gonna build. We know, of course, the Trumpian language where he said, this is. The folks in the Trump world have said it's gonna be iconic. It's gonna be the best presidential library ever. But we only know a few things that they've said over time. For example, Eric Trump, he's the part of the board of the Trump Library Foundation. When he went on a podcast hosted by Benny Johnson, the host asked him, you know, would you have a fake news wing? And Eric idea jumped on it, by the way.

[Eric Trump]

I hadn't thought of that, but that's beautiful.

[Michael Kranish]

So that's going to be controversial if it happens, because he's telling this story.

[Eric Trump]

I actually think that'd be a great exhibit about how dishonest these people are and how they will lie, cheat, and steal.

[Michael Kranish]

And that has certainly been one of the things that President Trump has said time and time again. So from Trump's perspective, that's a big part of his presidency. He believes the media has been against him. It's the enemy of the people, according to him. So it's not surprising, really, that they would say that. But it certainly is something we don't usually see in a presidential library or center. And we know that President Trump has said that Qatar is giving him a 747 to be Air Force One, which would then be turned over to the library to be displayed there in some way or maybe at another site. But they haven't released any specific plans other than statements from time to time of what they want it to be. So they'll have to do that sort of pretty soon to say what they want to do. And as they start gathering more funds and put together plans, you know, past.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Presidential libraries, they were incentivized to be historically accurate. But there's nothing that says that Trump can just not mention his two impeachments. What does that mean for the future of understanding Trump's presidency, for future historians, future biographers?

[Michael Kranish]

I actually just finished a series about Thomas Jefferson, and one of the stories in that series was about the Jefferson Memorial. And I got interested in that because I knew the panel on Memorial on slavery was misleading. It left out key parts, it was doctored, it used some phrases, but did not follow up phrases, and didn't mention that Jefferson owned 600 slaves in his lifetime. So I went back and I told the story of how that happened. And the reason that's so relevant here is because it just shows you that time and time again, there are people who want a certain story to be told about a former president. So in that case, that was arranged by Jefferson's great, great grandson who was on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission. So here we have the Trump Library. His son, Eric Trump, is leading this effort. We do see this. So I certainly wouldn't want to say, well, Trump's the only one who's doing it differently. We've seen time and again that, you know, there are monuments here that people will disagree and for, you know, the way they are, but it is the way that those monuments were done at the time. And sometimes there's one interpretation, and then later on, people come on and say, you know, I have a new take on this history and I found new things.

[Eric Trump]

And.

[Michael Kranish]

And that is part of the process, the historiography, as it's called. So no doubt there'll be people, you know, for decades to come, studying the Trump presidency. And you have new perspective, and hopefully people can look at it and get their own sense, gather all the information, and it's something that's important today and for history.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Michael, thank you so much for coming on.

[Michael Kranish]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Colby Biechowitz]

Michael Kranish is a political investigative reporter for the Post. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. We are so grateful to have you as a listener. Now we want to learn more about your listening habits and how you think we can be better. We've got a new survey that we're running for a limited time, and we would love to hear from you. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to complete. To do that, you go to washingtonpost.com again, that is washingtonpost.com podcastsurvey when you're done, you can enter to win $100 gift card one more time if that got your attention. That is washingtonpost.com podcastsurvey Today's show was produced by Thomas Lu and mixed by Shawn Carter. It was edited by Ariel Plotnick. Thanks to editor Dan Egan. I'm Cole Biechowitz. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington Post.