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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump's secretary of the interior says work will begin in the next two weeks on the president's plan for a giant arch in Washington. Doug Burgum posted on social media about plans for excavation work. You dig down for the foundations for a 250-foot-tall structure. But a commission has yet to approve the design. So what's going on here? We've called Emily Badger of The New York Times. Good morning.
EMILY BADGER: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. So what exactly is the plan, so far as you know?
BADGER: So this was a big surprise yesterday that Secretary Burgum announced this for a couple of reasons. One is that there is an active lawsuit opposing the arch. The administration thinks that lawsuit should be dismissed, but a judge hasn't actually agreed with that yet. But the bigger issue here is that there are a bunch of steps that the administration has agreed to go through before building the arch, and they simply haven't completed them yet.
So they haven't gotten this approval from the National Capital Planning Commission. They haven't completed this process that they're supposed to go through under the National Historic Preservation Act. There are a bunch of kind of lingering unresolved legal issues. And basically, what the administration appears to be saying now is, you know, we don't think that this lawsuit is going to stand in our way. And also, we're just not going to complete all of these other things we said we were going to do. We're just going to go ahead and start building this thing.
INSKEEP: I am thinking of a tactic that you sometimes hear about from real estate developers. They're told, don't tear down that building, but they just tear it down and say, sue me. Is that what the administration effectively is doing here by building? They're - we're going to get started, whether you like it or not.
BADGER: Well, this is a very familiar pattern. This is what we saw them do with the East Wing of the White House, which they tore down last fall, and then they immediately began building the president's ballroom on top of it and basically sort of said, you know, go ahead and try to stop me. And earlier this week, the Supreme Court gave the green light to the administration to go ahead and proceed with building the ballroom. And I think that's sort of given them a feeling of carte blanche that they can go ahead and do that with these other projects the president would like to do around the city as well.
INSKEEP: Is that part of the rationalization for starting with the arch? We prevailed in the ballroom. We're obviously going to prevail on the arch. We're just going ahead.
BADGER: Yeah. I mean, they filed something in court yesterday, basically saying, we think the issues in the ballroom are identical to the issues in the arch, and a judge should dismiss this suit. So, you know, they have said in court, we think the same issues apply here. But given Secretary Burgum's announcement yesterday, what they're also saying at the same time is, we're not going to wait for a judge to respond to what we just filed. We're not going to wait for any kind of formal resolution of this. You know, we really just believe that we can go ahead and proceed.
INSKEEP: What if, hypothetically, the National Capital Planning Commission went ahead and ruled on the arch and said, this is an inappropriate project, or it needs to be half the size or whatever they said? Is the administration willing to obey that?
BADGER: So the National Capital Planning Commission is not going to do that because the commission has been stocked with appointees by the president, with the president's allies. And so there have been a number of meetings where they've looked at preliminary plans for the arch. And at these meetings, there's been enormous kind of public outcry and opposition to it. There have been a lot of veterans and gold star mothers who have said, please don't build this thing just outside of Arlington National Cemetery, and that commission has sort of proceeded to advance it. And the expectation is that if it came back before them, they would advance it and give it final approval. But I think now it's not clear if that's ever even going to happen.
INSKEEP: OK. So very briefly, can anybody stop this?
BADGER: That is a really good question, and this is sort of the question that lingers over all of the president's construction projects after the Supreme Court ruling earlier this week. The people who are trying to stop it in this lawsuit are a group of veterans who are potentially going to have standing issues now, given what the Supreme Court said. You know, they're arguing that Congress' job is to approve a large monument that gets...
INSKEEP: Right.
BADGER: ...Built in the middle of the national capital. Congress hasn't done that here. But it is an open question now whether or not these are the right people to raise that question in court, and it is sort of genuinely uncertain at this point. Does anyone have standing?
INSKEEP: Emily Badger of The New York Times. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
BADGER: Thanks for having me. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. NPR does not offer or accept money for coverage or interviews. Anyone who makes such an offer or request is not an NPR employee and does not represent NPR. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{310:function(e,n,o){o.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([o.e(1),o.e(2),o.e(3),o.e(4),o.e(80)]).then((e=>{o(15),o(769),o(155),o(176),o(93),o(447),o(254),o(128),o(130),o(754),o(175),o(755),o(255),o(78),o(773)}).bind(null,o)).catch(o.oe)},782:function(e,n,o){e.exports=o(310)}},[[782,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();