President Trump's efforts to remake Washington, D.C., have dominated his second term, even after his party's resounding midterm defeat.
He started his election week at the scandal-plagued Reflecting Pool and ended it with an order declaring his gilded Oval Office a national monument to "make it impossible for anybody ever to destroy this incredible space."
That proclamation, like any executive order, could be undone by a future president. But many of Trump's construction projects are changing D.C. in more permanent ways.
His administration has already downed hundreds of trees at East Potomac Park and demolished the East Wing of the White House to make space for a ballroom — which he called "the safest place in Washington" as he showed it to reporters the day after the midterms.
Trump has taken a uniquely unilateral approach to construction, packing regulatory commissions with his allies and bypassing Congress entirely. Most of his projects — from the triumphal arch to the Kennedy Center — are now playing out in court.
Critics accuse the Trump administration of skirting federal laws and misleading judges in its effort to progress as quickly as possible before the end of his term.
Democrats have vowed to use their soon-to-be congressional majority to push back on what they describe as Trump's "vanity projects."
When asked about that, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told NPR in an email that "no other president has done more to beautify our Nation's interior than President Trump." He cited park cleanups, the Reflecting Pool and the White House helipad and ballroom as examples, and said Democrats "should work with President Trump to make our nation's capital beautiful again."
Rep. Jared Huffman, D.-Calif., told NPR in an interview that the Trump administration has "played this game of Catch Me If You Can, where they roll ahead with the bulldozers and the tree cutters … and they wait for courts to shut them down." He says a Democrat-led Congress will fight back.
"There's no way that we could look away while these sacred, iconic places are being permanently changed in ways that violate the law and could have really terrible lasting impacts," said Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, which has a legislative purview over public lands and national parks.
Huffman says blocking Trump's construction projects — and holding people accountable for potential wrongdoing — will be a top priority when he leads the committee. Earlier this week, he sent letters ordering dozens of administration officials and private companies to preserve their records for a future investigation.
"Whether it is the arch or … or the East Potomac golf course or any number of other examples around the United States capital, that is federal land, and we have a direct statutory responsibility to either authorize those changes or to stop them if they're proceeding without the proper authorization," Huffman said.
What would that actually look like? Democrats have many tools at their disposal, from legislation to lawsuits. But experts say only two are likely to succeed: funding and oversight.
Democrats could block funding for specific projects, potentially as soon as next month
Congress could — at least in theory — pass laws to block specific projects from moving ahead. Some Democratic lawmakers have already introduced bills to protect the Kennedy Center from demolition and prohibit the construction of an arch at Memorial Circle.
But Trump has promised to "veto everything," and Democrats won't have a big enough majority to override him on their own.
"Legislation in principle is the cleanest way of doing it, but it's also not achievable," said David Super, who teaches administrative and constitutional law at Georgetown. "So what they're likely to do is cut off funds."
The Constitution says that the federal government may spend money only if is appropriated by Congress. But Trump has neither sought nor received congressional authorization for projects like the arch and the White House ballroom — he maintains he doesn't need it.
Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine is one of many who disagree. She's the top Democrat on the House committee that oversees funding for the Interior Department.
"Certainly Congress should have been involved, because we have the power of the purse," Pingree told NPR. "That is our ultimate tool. And Republicans have refused to use that. But we can use that in very many ways to block him or to use it for leverage."
Pingree says a Democratic majority will be able to write appropriations bills with clear language from the outset about where money can and can't be spent — and potentially take the president to court if he doesn't follow it.
Super expects Congress would prevail in such a challenge, because it has clear-cut authority over federal funds.
For example, he noted that some of Trump's D.C.-area beautification projects have been funded at least in part by diverted national park entrance fees. Congress could "cap how much money can be used in the greater Washington area, and force the money to be used in the Everglades and Yosemite and Great Smoky Mountains," he said.
Congress will have to make some appropriations decisions in the coming weeks, since it needs to pass a short-term funding bill by Dec. 11 to avoid a government shutdown. Democrats could use that opportunity to try to limit funding for at least one of Trump's construction projects.
Huffman has proposed language that would prevent Trump from using federal funds for the East Potomac golf course renovations, limiting them instead to repairs of the park's crumbling seawall. Pingree said she will join him in fighting to negotiate that into next month's bill.
"Whether or not the president will sign that with that in there, I don't know yet," she said. "But certainly those are the most … immediate crisis points … People want the president to stop cutting down the trees on the golf course and stop trying to take that over, and they want to make sure that no shovel goes into the ground on building the arch."
Earlier this year Pingree introduced an amendment that would have outright blocked construction of the arch; it failed along party lines. She wonders whether any Republicans might vote differently after the midterms, given the message Americans sent at the polls.
"They want the president to be focused on the issues they're dealing with: the cost of health care, the cost of food, the cost of gasoline," she said. "And if every time the president gives a speech, he's either standing in front of the Reflecting Pool, which he spent millions of dollars on, or showing you the new marble choices he's putting into the ballroom, it just makes a lot of people mad."
Pingree said she's been surprised to hear how strongly people feel about these projects – even people well outside D.C. And she agrees with them that potential corruption and misuse of taxpayer dollars are worth fighting: "After the first of the year, we will use every tool in our toolbox."
Democrats want to hold people and companies accountable
Lawmakers and experts acknowledge that not every project is reversible, or potentially even worth the fight. Huffman suggested he will focus on bigger projects, and ones that are moving too fast for courts to adequately rein in.
"Are we going to throw all of our efforts at stopping the gilding of every statue in Washington, D.C.? Probably not," said Huffman. "But these are iconic places that we're talking about, with permanent damage that we need to engage on to try to prevent."
Even so, Democrats could decide that certain construction projects are "the price they pay for other priorities," said Claire Leavitt, a professor of government at Smith College. Voters made clear they want lawmakers to focus on ending the Iran war and making life more affordable, big asks that may take a lot of political capital.
"And that's not corruption or Democrats not doing their job," Leavitt said. "It's just the natural trade-offs of dealing with who you're dealing with, and understanding that what matters to Trump more than anything seems to be building the arch, building the ballroom … remaking the Kennedy Center."
Whether or not these projects move forward, Congress can provide a fuller public accounting of how they came to be — in the hopes of preventing more in the future.
"They can gavel in hearings. They have agenda-setting power," Leavitt said. "They determine what the public hearing roster is. They decide which witnesses to invite. And that means they have a unique opportunity to draw negative public attention to the Trump administration."
That may be easier said than done, especially with an administration that has pointedly refused to comply with congressional oversight and is now warning Democrats that their future investigations could constitute criminality. Huffman was coy when asked how he is preparing to handle such challenges.
"We are going to have to have a strategy and a plan to do these things that prior Congresses have never imagined they would have to do," he said.
One investigative priority, lawmakers say, will be following the money — especially when it comes to donations for the ballroom and other projects. Leavitt says that focus has an added benefit: Private companies and individuals are likely more willing to testify than a member of the administration.
Another example: Congress could subpoena for information about the decision-making processes of the Kennedy Center board and the physical state of the building, which trustees say must be closed for two years of repairs. And it can put that information in the Congressional — and therefore historical — Record.
"Both the current public can make its judgments, and history can make its judgments," Leavitt said.
Leavitt said oversight can often lead to policy change in the longer term. For example: The committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection didn't stop Trump from eventually pardoning Capitol rioters, but it did lead Congress to pass an electoral reform act.
"The frustrating part about congressional oversight is Congress can draw attention to a problem, and they can demand accountability for something that's already been done," Leavitt said. "But it's very hard for Congress to stop something from happening that the president is determined to do."
Super agrees that Democrats are playing a long game. He expects to see more bipartisan support after Trump leaves office for preventing future presidents from following his playbook.
"The process in the past has been built on trust, and President Trump certainly broke that trust in numerous ways," he said. "Laws can be written so that we don't depend on trust, we depend on law. And I'm guessing we're going to do that."
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