Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville thinks he's finally cracked why President Donald Trump keeps trying to slap his name on Washington landmarks, arguing it stems not just from vanity but from genuine contempt for the city itself.
The comments came after MS NOW reported White House officials had discussed putting Trump's name on Ford's Theatre, the site of Abraham Lincoln's 1865 assassination, the latest in a string of rebranding efforts that also included a failed push to rename the Kennedy Center after him.
Carville laid out his theory on his Politics War Room podcast, The Daily Beast reported, rattling off a list of Washington landmarks he believes Trump has tried to tarnish, from the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery to the reflecting pool.
"I think he hates everything about Washington," Carville said.
Carville, the strategist who helped steer Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992, went further, arguing Trump dislikes the city's architecture and resents the inherent modesty tied to a government rooted in a Constitution dating back to 1789. He suggested Trump would be better off sticking to the Palm Beach airport he's already renamed after himself and leaving the capital alone.
Trump, for his part, denied the Ford's Theatre report outright on Truth Social, calling it fabricated.
"It is FAKE NEWS!" Trump wrote, insisting no one would want their name attached to the site of Lincoln's assassination and blaming Democrats for spreading what he called a malicious hoax meant to discredit him.
The dispute adds to a broader pattern critics have dubbed the "Trumpization" of Washington, pointing to changes or attempted changes across the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, the White House, the Kennedy Center, a proposed triumphal arch, new statues honoring "Acts of War," and the East Potomac golf links, among other sites around the capital.