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'Totally Beyond the Pale': Angry Judge Shuts Down Trump Administration's Mass Destruction of DC Trees
US District Judge Ana Reyes said the Trump administration's weekend removal of hundreds of trees at the East Potomac Golf Links "has cost the government all of its credibility."
Oct 12, 2026
A federal judge on Monday expressed outrage at the Trump administration for cutting down hundreds of trees at the East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, DC over the weekend.
As reported by journalist Scott MacFarlane in a Monday social media post, US District Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing a legal challenge to President Donald Trump's renovation plans for the golf course, slammed the administration for removing more than 400 trees on Saturday without providing any significant notice.
In addition to the roughly 430 trees that have already been cut down, attorneys from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged in court that nearly 300 additional trees had also been marked for removal.
Reyes said that the trees' destruction "has cost the government all of its credibility" in the case. Later in the hearing, the judge called the administration's actions "totally beyond the pale," according to MacFarlane.
A CNN account of the Monday court hearing captured Reyes ripping into a DOJ attorney who said they were doing their "best" to keep the judge informed of tree removals.
"No," Reyes shot back, "you did your absolute worst."
Reyes ordered the total halt of all construction on the course, including the removal of any trees, until at least Tuesday at 2 pm. Reyes said that she hoped to learn more about the trees' removal from at least one other administration official involved in the project during a Tuesday hearing.
In a July ruling, Reyes had allowed construction on the golf course to continue so long as the administration notified the court ahead of time if it planned to remove more than 10 trees from the property at a time.
Per MacFarlane's account, the judge said on Monday that the administration gave the court notice that it was planning to cut down hundreds of trees at 4:55 pm on Friday afternoon, ahead of a holiday weekend.
A Monday report in The Washington Post noted that the trees at the golf course were chopped down even though the administration has only referred to Trump's renovation of the property as a "potential project" in court filings, and has not released any details about a timeline for construction or about its projected cost.
Over the last two years, Trump has developed several vanity projects throughout the nation's capital, including a luxury ballroom at the White House, a "Triumphal Arch," and botched renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Last month, Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report calculating that the projected cost to taxpayers for President Donald Trump’s vanity projects has soared to more than $1.8 billion.
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‘Affront to Democracy’: Trump's National Guard Troops Seen in Front of Ballot Box in DC
"Armed troops do not belong near ballot boxes," the head of the District of Columbia ACLU told Common Dreams.
Oct 09, 2026
Amid fears that President Donald Trump will send armed agents to intimidate voters during the midterms, the DC Board of Elections told Common Dreams on Friday that it is responding to complaints of National Guard troops stationed outside a ballot drop box near downtown Washington shortly before voting was set to open.
On Thursday, Bryan K. Randolph, a Washington, DC-based political and legal commentator, posted a video to TikTok showing what he said were three members of the National Guard stationed in front of a ballot box outside the Foggy Bottom Metro station, which is located on the campus of George Washington University.
"I stood and watched for a few minutes before I shot this video," Randolph said. "They were there for at least a few minutes. I don't know for how much longer they'd been there before that."
@brynodc 10/8 National Guard at Ballot Box, Washington, DC. Foggy bottom metro.
♬ original sound - BrynoDC
He said that minutes after he began filming, the troops left, possibly because they saw him recording.
Federal law explicitly prohibits the presence of "any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held" unless their presence is necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.
Though the statute does not specifically mention ballot drop boxes, legal experts have argued that the phrase "any place" means it should apply not just to traditional polling places, but also ballot drop boxes, election offices, and ballot counting facilities.
While he said it was unclear why the troops were stationed at the ballot box, Randolph noted that it was "a giant white box with the word 'ballot' pretty hard to miss," adding that "they clearly, at best, have not been told to stay away."
A spokesperson for the DC Board of Elections confirmed to Common Dreams that it "has received complaints regarding National Guard personnel posted near a ballot drop box next to the Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro station."
"We are addressing the concerns with the National Guard directly and have requested that they impose limitations on the placement of National Guard service members near drop boxes and other voting locations in the District," she said.
Joint Task Force-District of Columbia, the military command overseeing National Guard operations in the capital, did not respond to a request for comment.
National Guard Members patrol 14th Street, working with Metro police on August 24, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to the streets of the nation's capital last summer. The troops have remained despite widespread public opposition and a federal judge's ruling that the deployment was unlawful, which an appeals court subsequently put on hold.
Asked about the possibility of deploying troops to polling places earlier this year, Trump did not rule it out. He has also lamented that he did not send National Guard troops to seize election materials while he tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
Voting rights experts have warned about possible plans by Trump to use federal troops or agents—including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the National Guard—to interfere with November's midterm elections. Though elections are administered by states under the Constitution, Trump has said that Republicans should "nationalize" voting.
Dan Herman and Devon Ombres, two national security and legal policy experts at the Center for American Progress, said that "there is little to no safe or democratic way for the military to be involved with the elections process."
"Voters may stay home if they fear military presence. Ballots may no longer be trusted if a machine’s chain of custody is broken. Military deployments elsewhere in a city might prevent voters from reaching their polling site in time," they wrote in a brief published Friday by Just Security.
The recording shared on Thursday is not the first instance of National Guard personnel seen gathered around ballot boxes in DC. In June, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), the nonvoting delegate from DC in the House of Representatives, demanded answers about another video in which a resident confronted several troops who were seen outside a drop box.
Asked whether they'd been told to stay away from the boxes, one of the Guard members responded, "No. Not at all."
"The fact that Guard personnel reportedly had not been instructed to avoid ballot drop boxes suggests a troubling lack of awareness by leadership of the impact these deployments are having on the district and its residents," Norton said.
A voter uses a ballot drop box at the Bucks County Administration building voting on demand and ballot drop center in Doylestown, Pennsylvania on October 31, 2024. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)
With Republicans in Congress projected to take heavy losses in the midterms, proponents of his efforts to overturn his last election defeat have reportedly met with Trump in recent days, urging him to declare a "national emergency" that they claim would allow him to assert direct authority over the elections, an idea disputed by legal experts.
One plan that has reportedly circulated among election deniers has involved invoking the Insurrection Act, which they claim would allow Trump to flood polling locations with military and federal law enforcement.
While the Insurrection Act would permit some domestic law enforcement by the military, Herman and Ombres emphasized that it would not override the laws restricting troops from polling locations.
"Armed troops do not belong near ballot boxes," Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, told Common Dreams. "At minimum, troop presence at the ballot box creates the appearance of voter intimidation and risks discouraging DC residents from exercising our fundamental right to vote."
"The deployment of National Guard into the District without the consent of our local government is an affront to democracy here and around the nation," she said. "National Guard troops must go home."
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Another Trump DOJ Weaponization Ploy Implodes as Judge Permanently Ends Reflecting Pool Vandalism Case
"This was a miscarriage of justice, and what happened... is an outrage that should shock every American," said attorneys representing former Olympian David Hearn.
Oct 01, 2026
A Washington, DC judge on Thursday shut down President Donald Trump's push to have the US Department of Justice indict a former Olympian on false charges of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
In a 26-page ruling, Washington, DC Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman said that charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn deserved to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning future DOJ attorneys can never revive the case against him.
Edelman noted that, within a month of having Hearn indicted on felony vandalism charges, the DOJ moved to dismissed the case "not because it had misidentified Mr. Hearn as the perpetrator of the alleged act, but because no crime occurred."
Rather, Edelman continued, the damage done to the Reflecting Pool "was due to a contractor's 'rushed and botched' installation of the lining while conducting renovations, and Mr. Hearn's actions had no effect on the value of the pool."
Attorneys representing Hearn issued a joint statement celebrating Edelman's decision, while emphasizing that the case "never should have been brought in the first place."
"This was a miscarriage of justice, and what happened to Mr. Hearn is an outrage that should shock every American," the attorneys said. "This administration chose to pursue an unjust prosecution against Mr. Hearn. It should not get repeated chances to wield the power of criminal prosecution against someone who should never have been prosecuted."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who counts Hearn as a constituent, ridiculed Trump-appointed DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro for trying to prosecute the former Olympian despite lacking "any evidence" against him.
Raskin also suggested that the president was more deserving of being charged with vandalizing iconic Washington, DC landmarks.
"If Detectives Pirro and [US Attorney General Todd] Blanche are still searching for felon vandals in the Nation’s Capital," Raskin wrote, "I’ve got great leads on who illegally bulldozed the East Wing of the White House and who has been desecrating the Kennedy Center with deranged narcissistic graffiti."
Trump personally pushed the DOJ to indict Hearn, and rebuked Pirro in August after her office moved to drop the case.
"I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro... on the Reflecting Pool," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "I don't know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM."
Norm Eisen, one of the attorneys representing Hearn, revealed later that month that he and other members of the former Olympian's legal team were seeking grand jury transcripts related to the case to determine “whether prosecutors were candid" when seeking the indictment of their client.
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Preservation Group 'Gobsmacked' as Trump Admin Dismisses Public Concern Over Triumphal Arch
By abruptly closing public consultation on the massive project, the administration “decided the public’s role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever," said critics.
Sep 28, 2026
A historical preservation group said it was "gobsmacked" on Monday after the Trump administration said it was closing down its consultation with experts about President Donald Trump's plan for a triumphal arch in Washington, DC, because addressing their concerns and those from the general public would require them to deviate from the president's vision for the project.
On Thursday, Travis Voyles, the Trump-appointed vice chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), sent a letter informing civil society and historic preservation groups that it was ending the federal review of how the 250-foot-tall arch would harm nearby historical sites.
That review is required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which mandates that federal agencies, including the National Park Service (NPS), consider how a project will affect historic properties and seek ways to "avoid, minimize, or mitigate” the harms of a planned project.
The federal regulations governing the Section 106 process explicitly state that "the views of the public are essential to informed federal decisionmaking,” and require agencies to “seek and consider” those views.
The administration, via the NPS, has acknowledged that the Triumphal Arch would have "adverse effects" on historical sites, disrupting views of Arlington National Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and dozens of others. Meanwhile, the proposal has received over 107,000 public comments, most of which are negative, according to a sample from the DC Preservation Office.
But rather than taking the public concern as a reason to reevaluate or scale back the project, Voyles explained that the ACHP was choosing to end public consultation altogether because taking it into account would require changing the “fundamental nature” of the project in a way that the administration would never accept.
"It is clear that the proposed undertaking and its potential effects on historic properties have raised significant public interest, and the NPS stated in its September 22, 2026 correspondence that it believes additional consultation on the existing proposal is unlikely to result in agreement... to resolve adverse effects," he wrote.
"Further, the NPS stated that implementation of alternatives to avoid or minimize the adverse effects would alter the fundamental nature of the proposed undertaking and fail to achieve its goals," he continued, explaining that "in recognition of the public’s significant concerns," they were "hereby terminating" consultation.
Voyles said the ACHP would create its own recommendations and deliver them by October 7 to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose office is overseeing the project. Burgum is legally required to consider and formally respond to those recommendations, but unlike a legally binding memorandum of agreement, he does not have to follow them.
The ACHP has set a deadline for public comments for Tuesday night at 11:59 pm and said it planned another meeting with consulting parties.
One of the outside groups involved in the consultation process was The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a national historic-landscape preservation nonprofit, whose founder and CEO, Charles Birnbaum, worked at the NPS for 15 years and was the principal author of the federal guidelines for cultural landscapes.
Section 106 requires consultation to begin “at the early stages of project planning.” But TCLF says the review began only after the Commission of Fine Arts had approved the arch’s design.
Meanwhile, the TCLF has said that it and other relevant preservation groups were invited to only a single meeting on September 9, just weeks before public consultation was terminated. They said this indicated that any real alternative proposals had essentially been taken off the table.
On Monday, Scott MacFarlane of MeidasTouch News published a letter from the TCLF savaging the administration's "extraordinary" reasoning for canceling the public consultation.
"Mr. Voyles has written a singularly audacious letter," it said. "Rather than address the 'public's significant concerns regarding the adverse effects' on one of the nation's most revered and symbolically important cultural landscapes through an authentic public engagement process that doesn't foreclose avoidance as a precondition, the administration, through its proxy, the ACHP, has decided the public's role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever."
The question of historical preservation is one of numerous legal issues facing Trump's effort to build the arch, which is estimated to cost at least $100 million, though the administration has not published an official price tag.
Although it will be partially funded by taxpayers, Congress has not yet authorized the project, leading to a federal lawsuit seeking to block construction.
Outcry over the public funding for the project led Trump last week to propose using the monument as a "military complex" that would house drones, ammunition, and snipers. He has similarly attempted to justify his taxpayer-funded White House ballroom project by giving it a dual national security purpose.
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'We Won't Let Him': Efforts to Stop Trump Grow as Work Observed at 'Illegal and Immoral' Arch
"I will continue doing everything in my power to stop this illegal and reckless attempt to turn our nation's capital into a monument to Donald Trump," vowed Rep. Don Beyer.
Sep 25, 2026
While Americans are stressed about the economy and President Donald Trump's approval rating has hit a historic low, the second-term Republican is focused on vanity projects like his proposed 250-foot "Triumphal Arch," which opponents are trying to block.
The watchdog group Public Citizen is planning a protest and press conference for the morning of October 1 at Memorial Circle in Washington, DC. Speakers include Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.), military veterans, and other critics of the "self-indulgent project" that lacks congressional approval—and which Trump is now trying to push as a national security project.
"Trump's planned construction is not only illegal," Public Citizen said in a Thursday statement, pointing to the lawsuit it filed on behalf of three Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian. "It is an affront to American veterans and their families."
"The arch will sit on Memorial Circle along the Potomac River, impeding the symbolic line-of-sight between the Lincoln Memorial in DC and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where hundreds of thousands of our nation's military members have been laid to rest," explained the group, which has secured from a federal judge temporary restrictions on work at the site.
Beyer—whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery—headed to the site on Thursday. He said in a statement that "after hearing from constituents who saw construction equipment at the site of Trump's proposed vanity arch, I drove down to Columbia Island to see for myself. When I arrived, I found workers operating heavy equipment who told me they were conducting archaeological work to evaluate the composition of the soil."
"When I asked whether this work was a precursor to construction of the arch, they said that they could not answer," the congressman continued. "The logical conclusion, however, is that the presence of this heavy equipment and additional surveyors is a clear indication that the Trump administration is preparing to move forward with construction. That would be deeply troubling. Trump's arch is illegal and immoral, and the administration is also under court order requiring 48 hours' notice before work proceeds."
"Yet, the administration appears to be pushing ahead with activity at the site even while it still has not done the basic work necessary to understand the consequences of this project," Beyer warned. "There has been no adequate assessment of the regional impacts of this 250-foot structure on public safety, vehicular traffic, air traffic, or historic sites, including the implications of Trump's latest ravings about using the arch as a base for drone and sniper operations."
Beyer, who also shared video of his visit to the site on social media, added that “Donald Trump and his administration are determined to find a way to push this project through by any means necessary, regardless of the law or the concerns of the people who live here, but my constituents have made their views abundantly clear: They do not want this project. Neither do I. I will continue doing everything in my power to stop this illegal and reckless attempt to turn our nation's capital into a monument to Donald Trump."
In May, Beyer and Dina Titus (D-Nev.)—who, as co-chair of the Congressional Humanities Caucus, led challenges to the administration's illegal attempts to fund the arch using the National Endowment for the Humanities budget—introduced the Arlington National Cemetery Viewshed Protection Act, which would explicitly prohibit construction of Trump's project.
"As President Trump strips away the necessary safety nets from Americans who are struggling to afford their basic needs like groceries and healthcare, he builds his unauthorized, grandiose Triumphal Arch. While destroying historical monuments and artifacts important to our American identity, he is erecting monuments to honor himself," Titus said at the time. "The American people deserve a leader who is responsibly using federal funding for critical government services, not for self-promotion."
After months of pushback over the project, Trump announced last Sunday that "at the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, planned since the Civil War Era many years ago, at the Receptive Circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge, into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage."
"There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World," the president wrote on his Truth Social platform. "Out of the 59 top cities and Capitals, Washington, DC, IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT HAVE A TRIUMPHAL ARCH, but it will now and, by far, the greatest of them all!"
The Hill reported Friday that analysts and lawmakers "are perplexed by President Trump’s surprise declaration," with Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, telling the outlet that adding military elements to the arch "is not totally fictional or crazy—but also not optimal."
Whether or not the project include military components, "to build an arch on federal land (that is not in the White House complex), the administration needs to navigate a lot of bureaucracy," The Washington Post noted Thursday. "The administration has argued the arch doesn't need to abide by DC's height laws for buildings and that it doesn't need congressional authorization because Congress authorized something similar a century ago nearby."
However, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation—whose members are picked by the president—has attempted to abide by Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and related regulations, and consulted with local officials "to seek ways to avoid, minimize, or mitigate adverse effects to historic properties that would result from this undertaking."
ABC News highlighted that "the law says federal officials don't have to reach an agreement with state officials on mitigation of those harms, but they do have to try. Those consultations can then be unilaterally terminated if there's a failure for parties to meet in the middle."
The council's vice chair, Travis Voyles, on Thursday wrote to Tammy Stidman, associate regional director for lands and planning at the National Park Service, that "we are hereby terminating consultation," but the panel "will develop and transmit its final comments to the secretary of interior," aiming to deliver them by October 7.
According to the Post, "The administration is hoping to start construction by November."
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'FAA Should Not Use My Constituents as Guinea Pigs': House Democrat Demands End of AI Air Traffic Control
"Dangerously rushing a system that holds Americans’ lives in its hands is not a good use case for artificial intelligence."
Sep 22, 2026
A Democratic US congressman on Monday urged the Federal Aviation Administration to immediately suspend a new artificial intelligence system being used to help manage air traffic around Washington, DC, accusing the agency of using passengers as "guinea pigs" without adequately vetting the new technology.
The Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories (SMART) system, developed by AI firm Air Space Intelligence under an $875 million contract, began limited operations Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the system uses AI to synthesize roughly 200 data streams—including weather, flight paths, airline schedules, airport capacity, and controller staffing—to anticipate congestion and recommend ways to avert delays and cancellations.
The FAA claims that use of SMART will result in fewer flight delays and cancellations, optimized airspace, more predictable operations, and lower airfare costs for consumers.
"To really improve the flying experience for the American people, we needed to build a 21st century scheduling tool like SMART,” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “By fundamentally reshaping how we manage our airspace and preventing problems before they happen, SMART will slash those frustrating delays, reduce stress on air traffic controllers, and lower travel prices."
“It's always going to be a human that manages the airspace in America,” Duffy promised. “Humans control the airspace, humans make decisions.”
The industry trade group Airlines for America called SMART “exciting and bold," while United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told The Washington Post that “if it works as we think it can, it will do more to reduce delays and cancellations than anything that’s happened in decades."
However, Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.)—whose district includes Reagan National Airport—said in a statement that “the FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system."
"The safety of the 24 million people traveling through DCA each year must be the top priority," he added, referring to the International Air Transport Association code for Reagan National Airport.
The FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system that has Americans’ lives in its hands.I’m calling on the FAA to immediately suspend use of this AI system at Washington area airports until its safety has been established.My full statement:
[image or embed]
— Congressman Don Beyer (@beyer.house.gov) September 21, 2026 at 1:25 PM
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation concluded that the January 2025 midair collision between a US Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet, operated by PSA Airlines—which killed 67 people—was caused by a chain of human errors.
"Residents of this region are still uncertain about air safety after last year’s fatal accident, and the administration did shockingly little to educate the traveling public about this development before implementing it in one of the most complex airspaces in the world," Beyer said.
The congressman continued:
Unfortunately, I was informed today that air traffic controllers were not consulted on the SMART system’s design and development, and were not trained on using it prior to the system’s adoption at local airports. I was further informed that the air traffic controllers have been told the SMART system can adjust schedules and potentially even routes. Despite outward appearances, the airlines reportedly were privately "panicking" about the hasty implementation of this system. I do not know why the administration felt the need to race it into use, but it is unacceptable to use AI as a substitute for rebuilding the human-directed air traffic controller workforce.
“Dangerously rushing a system that holds Americans’ lives in its hands is not a good use case for artificial intelligence," Beyer asserted. "I call on the FAA to immediately suspend its operation, at the very least until it is clearly established beyond doubt via air traffic controller feedback and independently verified stress testing that the technology is safe."
Duffy responded to Beyer's concerns in an interview with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, saying: "I like Don [but] this is just complete stupidity. The problem with this analysis is our new software is predictive, so we can predict weather and make better decisions on when we fly and weather."
Beyer isn't the only lawmaker voicing concerns over the use of SMART. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Monday that "safety must always be the FAA's number one priority. This is extremely concerning, and we need immediate answers about what this means for travelers."
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said that it was not involved in the SMART rollout.
“NATCA has not been involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and therefore cannot speak to its effect on the air traffic control workforce at this time,” the union said, adding that any new technology “should complement and not replace the experience, training, and professional judgment of air traffic controllers who are responsible for the safety of the National Airspace System.”
The FAA's launch of SMART comes as the agency continues to suffer from a shortage of certified air traffic controllers. The Washington Post reported that the FAA had about 11,000 certified controllers as of April, more than 1,500 short of its official target of 12,563.
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Trump Issues His Nero Decree
His final strategy for the Kennedy Center, after judges have repeatedly told him he cannot put his name on another president’s memorial, is scorched earth.
Sep 18, 2026
On Friday night, DC-based advocacy organization Hands Off the Arts and its allies are going to form a human chain around the Kennedy Center, called Hands Around the Kennedy Center, putting their bodies on the line to protect the institution. While the group has been planning this action for several weeks, before the removal and literal disembodiment of Joel Shapiro’s 24-foot-tall sculpture "Blue," the board’s vote to close to the Kennedy Center, and pictures captured Wednesday night showing President Donald Trump looking at a plan to demolish the Kennedy Center aboard Air Force One, the action has taken on intense meaning.
At its core, his final strategy for the Kennedy Center, after judges have repeatedly told him he cannot put his name on another president’s memorial, is scorched earth.
I have been on the ground in Washington, DC from the beginning—reporting and raising awareness about Hands Off the Arts’ weekly protests since Trump’s second inauguration. Many of the Hands Off the Arts organizers—including co-founder Mallory Miller—were my colleagues, at the arts institution where I worked as an audio describer for three years. As a public historian witnessing Trump transform the Kennedy Center into his hill to die on, I cannot help but see the similarities to Adolf Hitler’s Nero Decree where he ordered the destruction of German lands and infrastructure to prevent its future use by any Allied forces.
“The demolition watch piece of this cannot be understated. It is truly a crazy timeline that we’re living in where the president of the United States can just say that he might demolish the Kennedy Center.”
Hitler’s strategy was named after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, which, according to tradition, was blamed on Rome’s Christian communities and used by Emperor Nero to justify their persecution. Although there is no historical evidence that Nero set the fire, nor that he played the fiddle or lyre while watching the city burn, Nero was blamed all the same, especially since land cleared by the fire was used to build his new palace, the Domus Aurea. Hitler issued his decree once he recognized that Germany faced imminent defeat but was unwilling to accept the terms of unconditional surrender. He ordered that this land be destroyed on the grounds that the German people had failed his great mission.
As Hitler wrote in the March 1945 decree, “All military transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments, and supply deports, as well as anything else of value within Reich territory, which could in any way be used by the enemy immediately or within the foreseeable future for the prosecution of the war, will be destroyed.”
Even before Hitler issued the Nero decree, he was already burning thousands of works of art publicly. The Nazi government confiscated art from state-owned German museums and then put them on public display in 1937 as part of a propaganda art exhibition meant to classify art created in the styles of Dadaism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstraction as “Degenerate Art.” What could be sold to enrich the regime was and what couldn’t was publicly burned. The similarity to Trump’s criticism of Jose de Rivera’s "Infinity" in front of the National Museum of American History and destruction of Joel Shapiro’s "Blue" is palpable.
All of the other art that he favored, namely Classical and Renaissance works, were hidden in caches and planned to be displayed at a massive art complex called the Führermuseum in his hometown of Linz, Austria. The museum was never finished because the Nazi regime fell before Hitler’s goal was realized. In the chaos of the Nazi regime’s collapse, many priceless works of art burned in two devastating fires in May 1945 that destroyed the Friedrichshain flak tower. Whether the fires were caused by an accident, combat damage, or intentionally set, we will never know, but Hitler never intentionally ordered the destruction of the art held in these caches.
While the Hitler’s Nero decree ordered the destruction of German lands and infrastructure, not the art he had stolen, the connection to Trump’s fight for the Kennedy Center is glaringly obvious. Chris Raleigh, one of the co-founders of Hands Off the Arts, pointed out the historical similarities in an interview with me this week. Raleigh compared the Hands Off the Arts group to the Monuments Men fighting to preserve the art that Hitler and the Nazi regime stole and was holding hostage.
“Hitler wanted to build a museum where he lived… I think he wanted to make basically his mausoleum. It was his antithesis to all the degenerate art of the world at the time,” Raleigh explained. “I worry about the Nero decree. It was, "If I can’t have it, no one can. Destroy all of it.’ I don’t know if we’re in Nero decree territory, but we’re going pretty close.”
In truth, comparisons between Trump and Hitler are tenuous at best. There are striking social, economic, and even religious differences between the two dictators, but historical similarities are key to helping us understand how history can help us anticipate and fight back against violent escalation. At its core, Trump’s fight for the Kennedy Center as well as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is about his legacy, about how he will be remembered. It’s just like Hitler’s own fight to create a cultural district synonymous with his name, not so different from Trump’s own attempts to cast DC as culturally derelict and remake the capital in his own image, with the installation of new sculptures of controversial founding fathers and gilding “The Arts of War” and “The Arts of Peace” equestrian monuments.
As Mallory Miller, co-founder of Hands Off the Arts, explained to me, the way that the Trump administration was purposefully not caring for the exterior of the building, leading to mold growth, deinstalling "Blue," and widely publicizing the ceiling collapse is another use of this purposeful tactic to convince the public that the Kennedy Center is falling apart and needs to be closed and demolished for safety reasons.
“The demolition watch piece of this cannot be understated. It is truly a crazy timeline that we’re living in where the president of the United States can just say that he might demolish the Kennedy Center,” Miller said. Hands Off the Arts organized a livestream of the front of the building, capturing some of the first photos of his name being removed from the building before the tarp went up. The administration has even started putting up bike racks and other barriers around the perimeter of the Kennedy Center, which Miller acknowledges is likely in anticipation of their protest tonight. But with more than 900 people registered for the protest, Miller is eager to just make their circle bigger to protect the memorial to the slain president.
“We can save this,” Raleigh continued, “We can save world heritage. American heritage, but it’s going to be hard, and they’re not going to go down without a struggle, but that is also one of the things that I think about—we are not the first people [to do this work].”
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The US People Must Reject Donald Trump's Standing Army
President Trump's deployment of the National Guard to Washington, DC is designed to normalize something that should never be normal in this country: the use of the military as a domestic police force.
Aug 23, 2026
One year ago, President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, DC, claiming, without evidence, that the city had been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.”
In response to this alleged crisis, Trump deployed roughly 800 members of the DC National Guard as well as more than 1,000 National Guard members from several cooperating states “to protect law-abiding citizens from the destructive forces of criminal activity.” A year later, 4,600 troops patrol the city against the wishes of the district’s elected local government.
This deployment violates long-standing American traditions, jeopardizes public safety, and has already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars—all without any discernible impact on violent crime rates in Washington. Yet Trump wants to keep troops here, and he’s counting on Americans to stop paying attention. We can’t let that happen.
From the beginning, Trump’s claim of a “crime emergency” stood on weak footing. In fact, the murder tally in Washington had declined from 274 in 2023 to 187 in 2024.
The founding generation would immediately have seen the danger in a president trying to normalize the domestic use of troops.
But even if day-to-day crime in Washington had instead been trending upward, that would not have justified the invocation of emergency powers. Such powers are intended for sudden, unforeseen crises—the definition of an emergency—that normal legal frameworks and systems are too slow-moving to address. Urban crime, in contrast, is a foreseeable, ongoing problem that can and should be addressed employing the ordinary tools of government.
Use of the military raises additional concerns. A president deploying troops to police street crime is unprecedented; it violates centuries of American civic tradition and political thought. Americans have long rejected military interference in civilian affairs, and particularly military involvement in law enforcement, because an “army turned inward” can easily become an instrument of tyranny. Domestic deployment of the military is a tool of last resort, to be used only when civilian authorities are overwhelmed.
There are other, more immediate reasons to be wary of domestic military operations. Military personnel, including members of the National Guard, are trained to be soldiers, not police officers. Most National Guard members have little or no training in local criminal law, how to uphold constitutional rights, or how to preserve and collect evidence. Over the past year, there have been disturbing incidents where guard members have improperly detained DC residents and, in at least one documented case, used excessive force.
Trump’s use of the National Guard in Washington has also largely failed to serve its stated purpose. Although there was a narrow reduction in opportunistic property crime over the first six months of the deployment, recent analysis has found little to no impact on violent crime. On the other hand, the deployment has proven to be extraordinarily expensive for taxpayers, with a current cost of over $3 million per day.
Those costs will only accelerate in light of the recently announced $292 million deal to provide National Guard members deployed to Washington with apartment-style housing. In return for these huge sums of money, guard members across DC are spending their days standing idle on street corners and in metro stations—a form of non-activity euphemistically labeled “presence patrols.”
Yet Trump shows no signs of reversing course. To the contrary, he has doubled down. A “summer surge” brought the number of guard forces in DC close to 5,000, and the administration has announced that it intends to keep troops here through January 20, 2029, at an estimated cost of $1.4 billion beyond the money already spent.
The duration of the deployment might be what’s most concerning. No true emergency can be predicted to remain in place for another two-and-a-half years. If there was any doubt before, it’s now clear that the deployment was never meant to be a quick response to an immediate crisis.
It is designed to normalize something that should never be normal in this country: the use of the military as a domestic police force. It would be a small step from National Guard forces assisting in the arrest of people who dip their hands in the reflecting pool to guard members policing protests. And if Trump were to try to illegally block Congress’ certification of the 2028 presidential election—this time using military force, rather than exhorting an angry mob—there would be thousands of troops already arrayed within a short distance of the US Capitol.
It is no small irony that armed troops are patrolling the streets of our nation’s capital in the same summer as the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That document denounces King George III for, among other things, using “among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” The founding generation would immediately have seen the danger in a president trying to normalize the domestic use of troops.
We must see it, too. The longer the deployment lasts, the less shocking the sight of National Guard forces on nearly every street corner becomes, and the easier it is to view the situation as a new normal. The American people must resist that instinct and demand an end to the deployment.
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Trump Threatens to Sue Think Tank Over Study That Exposed Folly of His DC National Guard Deployment
"Efforts to silence independent research because its findings are unwelcome by an administration or president should alarm every American."
Aug 21, 2026
President Donald Trump is threatening to sue a liberal think tank after it published a report last month casting doubt on the purported effectiveness of his deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC.
The New York Times reported on Friday that Alejandro Brito, one of the president's personal lawyers, sent a letter to the Center for American Progress (CAP) this week demanding that it retract a study it published on July 13, which concluded that there was no evidence the National Guard's presence in the nation's capital did anything to reduce violent crime.
Brito threatened to file a $5 billion defamation lawsuit against CAP if it did not retract the report and offer a personal apology to the president, according to the Times.
CAP president Neera Tanden said the organization was standing by its work and would not back down in the fact of legal threats from the president.
"This threatened lawsuit’s attack on facts and evidence is baseless," said Tanden. "A fundamental protection of the First Amendment is to allow for the publication of facts and analysis that is contrary to the arguments and claims of any administration. A lawsuit is a transparent attempt to silence us."
Tanden added that "efforts to silence independent research because its findings are unwelcome by an administration or president should alarm every American."
CAP's report notes that crime has been declining in major US cities across the country over the last two years, and it finds that declines in Washington, DC over that period were not significantly greater than in cities where there was no National Guard presence.
"Despite multiple tests using multiple data sources, measures, and windows of time," the report concludes, "there is no compelling evidence that these deployments reduced homicides, violent crime, or gun violence."
The report adds that the goal of the deployment was never about fighting crime but rather "a dangerous power grab by the Trump administration."
CAP isn't alone in questioning the effectiveness of Trump's DC National Guard deployment.
Reuters on Wednesday published an investigation finding that National Guard soldiers have been mentioned in just 1.3% of cases brought before the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, which processes nearly all prosecutions in the city.
What's more, the investigation found that National Guard soldiers were mostly deployed to wealthier neighborhoods in the city, where they responded to minor incidents.
After examining court records, Reuters investigators "could find no reference... to soldiers doing any kind of law enforcement in the neighborhoods where about 82% of the city’s 859 murders occurred over the past five years."
Deploying the National Guard in DC is also an expensive endeavor. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) earlier this month revealed that keeping soldiers deployed in the city is projected to cost taxpayers an extra $1.4 billion through the end of Trump’s term.
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Trump’s National Guard in DC Costs Millions Each Day, But Hardly Ever Stops Crime
Though National Guard troops now outnumber police officers in the capital, Reuters found they’ve been involved in just over 1% of criminal cases in the city, and most of them have been for minor offenses.
Aug 19, 2026
It's been about a year since President Donald Trump began his military occupation of Washington, DC. But while costing taxpayers millions of dollars per day, a new investigation reveals that his National Guard deployments have done almost nothing to stop violent crime.
Crime in DC was already at its lowest level in decades when Trump sent in the troops last August, as was the case in many of the cities that came under unprecedented federal occupation.
But while Trump claimed that these soldiers—who can only detain suspects but must call police officers to make arrests—were the only force capable of saving DC from "crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor," a Reuters investigation out Wednesday found that they’ve had a role in responding to only a tiny fraction of criminal cases.
Since their arrival last August, National Guard members have been mentioned in only about 1.3% of the criminal cases filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, which handles nearly all the city's criminal prosecutions.
And though Trump has repeatedly credited his troops with protecting residents from being murdered and mugged, charging documents show that his soldiers "mostly responded to minor incidents in neighborhoods that are wealthier, whiter, and less dangerous than the rest of the capital."
Many of the cases where troops intervened, Reuters found, were to stop offenses like subway fare evasion and shoplifting.
Reuters said it "could find no reference in court records to soldiers doing any kind of law enforcement in the neighborhoods where about 82% of the city’s 859 murders occurred over the past five years."
The investigation describes a pattern of soldiers simply standing around while crimes occurred and waiting for police to arrive. In one instance, police officers arrived to arrest a man stomping on a woman outside a nightclub.
According to one of the officers who responded to the scene, "There was approximately 15 National Guard members in the area on routine patrol who did not take any action.”
In another case, soldiers called emergency services after finding a man who'd been stabbed in an upscale waterfront area. But believing him to have only been intoxicated, they left him lying on the ground without performing emergency measures.
They only realized once the police arrived that he'd been "stabbed so severely his intestines were spilling out." He died two hours later after being brought to the hospital.
The administration has portrayed the mere presence of troops as a "deterrent" against crime. But violent crime in the city has actually risen slightly in the year since they arrived. Data from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) shows 1,712 violent crimes in 2026 versus 1,645 at the same point in 2025—a 4% increase.
Meanwhile, the grassroots group Free DC has been documenting hostile encounters between guard troops and city residents. The group has cataloged several instances in which troops have detained people, including those protesting their presence, with what it says was “absolutely no cause.”
"They harass people a lot more than they are actually doing police work,” said the Rev. Norman Nixon, the pastor of the Union Temple Baptist Church, who spoke with Reuters.
DC now has over 4,500 troops patrolling the streets. Despite lacking the ability to perform many ordinary police functions, they now outnumber the city’s police force, and maintaining the National Guard's presence is costing more each day.
According to a report from the nonpartisan Niskanen Center, a deployed Guard member costs around $607 per day, compared with about $384 for an MPD officer. The Trump administration has estimated that keeping the Guard deployed until the end of Trump's term in 2029 will cost about $1.4 billion.
The troops also played a role in the administration’s campaign to remove homeless people from DC and help federal agents dismantle encampments last summer as part of what Trump described as a war against “vagrancy.”
Last year, researcher Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project estimated that the deployments, which then cost an estimated $1.1 million per day, was costing four times as much as it would to provide an affordable housing unit for every homeless person in the city, which was pegged at about $257,000 per day.
The Defense Department has since estimated that the cost of the deployments was nearly $1.7 million per day. But that was before the number of troops doubled.
Applying Homestead's methodology today would mean that deploying the National Guard is now nearly 9-10 times as costly as providing housing for the Washington, DC's homeless population, all while providing little apparent benefit to public safety.
"I can think of many other ways that federal resources could have been invested to make the nation’s capital safer," said Clinique Chapman, the CEO of the DC Justice Lab, in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post earlier this summer.
“For what it costs to deploy the Guard in [the] US for just six days,” Chapman said, taxpayers could have instead paid for the annual cost of running trauma recovery centers in each ward to help crime survivors heal and connect them to treatment and support.
For five days of the expenditure, the US could fund a mental health crisis response program like Denver's, which responds to hundreds of calls for service each month and reduces arrests, for one year.
For 41 days of what the National Guard deployment costs, the District could fund a year of living-wage jobs and pay the rent on a one-bedroom unit for every US resident returning home from the Bureau of Prisons.
ACLU-DC executive director Monica Hopkins emphasized that the point of the deployments was never to improve the lives of DC residents or enhance public safety, but a “political prop.”
"The Pentagon’s acknowledgment that the deployment will continue until 2029 confirms what we’ve said all along—there is no real emergency here," she said in a statement to mark the one-year anniversary of the deployment. "As was true one year ago, armed military troops are not needed and are not wanted on our streets."
"Because the nation's capital is not legally recognized as a state, extremist politicians have used DC as a testing ground for anti-democratic orders," she added. "We cannot let military deployment on the streets of the United States become normal or acceptable as a part of daily life here or anywhere else."
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