“Thank you, PRESIDENT TRUMP,” the sign says.
That’s just the start of what a tourist will encounter as they sightsee in the heart of the nation’s capital. Or these days, the nation’s capital as brought to you by Donald Trump.
A banner thanking President Donald Trump hangs on a construction site on April 24, 2026, outside Union Station in Washington, D.C. (Photo by David Lightman/States Newsroom)
The Trump reminders are all over. Walk the tourist walk from the Capitol down and around Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House and on to the Lincoln Memorial and it’s clear who’s in charge.
Whether or not this is affecting tourism is unclear. Destination DC, a nonprofit organization that markets the area as a global tourist destination, doesn’t keep month-to-month data. It found in 2024, before the Trump boom, a record 27.2 million people visited the city.
“Tourists who are pro-Trump will be drawn to his eponymous sites. Those who oppose him will not. Most tourists will pay no attention to his projects but will enjoy all the historic and exciting venues and exhibits in Washington,” said Barbara Perry, professor in Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center
She said Trump’s propensity to “destroy, rebuild, construct, and name numerous sites and institutions for himself is most unusual.”
Trump likenesses
Trump detailed his plans in a March, 2025, executive order, “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful.”
“Its highways, boulevards, and parks should be clean, well-kept, and pleasant,” he said of the nation’s capital. “Its monuments, museums, and buildings should reflect and inspire awe and appreciation for our Nation’s strength, greatness, and heritage. Our citizens deserve nothing less.”
Previous incumbent presidents’ pictures were usually confined to 8-by-10 portraits hanging in post offices or deep inside other federal buildings, as they were careful not to splatter their names and likenesses so publicly.
“Typical presidents want to avoid looking arrogant by honoring themselves while in office or even after—except for their presidential libraries, starting with FDR. They usually feel humbled if a Navy ship, for example, is named for them while they are extant: Bush I and Ford come to mind,” Perry said of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
Both served in the Navy and saw combat in the South Pacific.
Traffic rumbles past a banner showing President Donald Trump hanging on the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2026. (Photo by David Lightman/States Newsroom)
Democrats are furious about the Trump makeover. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, calls Trump’s actions “narcissism” and is pushing the “Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego Act.”
“Donald Trump doesn’t get to slap his name on any public institution he chooses. We don’t have kings or dictators in America, and this legislation stops him or any future sitting president from creating monuments to glorify themselves,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
The bill is likely to go nowhere in the Republican-run Congress.
So for now, tourists can stroll around the Mall and see how Trump has tried to transform the nation’s capital.
Starting at the Capitol and heading south down Constitution Avenue until it splits off to Pennsylvania Avenue, here goes:
Albert Pike statue
Status: Installed at Judiciary Square, about four blocks from the Capitol.
Details: “The only public sculpture in DC to commemorate a Confederate general,” says the DC Historic Sites team website. Pike was a slave owner and a senior officer in the Confederate Army.
The memorial was “toppled and burned on Juneteenth of 2020, as protests continued across the country in response to the murder of George Floyd,” the website says. Floyd was a Black man killed by a white policeman in Minneapolis, sparking protests around the country.
A statue of Albert Pike, the only public sculpture in Washington, D.C., to commemorate a Confederate general, was toppled and burned during George Floyd protests in 2020. President Donald Trump had it restored and placed at this location about four blocks from the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by David Lightman/States Newsroom)
Last year, the Trump administration had the Pike statue restored and placed at its present location.
The action was part of an executive order Trump issued in March 2025. He ordered a review of memorials or statues that had been “removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.”
The order also affected the Smithsonian Institution, which Trump said “has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.”
Trump banners on federal buildings
Status: Huge banners with Trump’s face hang from the Judiciary and Labor Departments.
Details: “American Workers First” says the Labor banner, with Trump’s vastly enlarged face atop the saying. Another banner features President Theodore Roosevelt.
The banners, which cover almost three stories of the building, are visible from both heavily-trafficked Constitution and Pennsylvania avenues.
About six blocks away, on Pennsylvania Avenue at the Justice Department — which a few years ago investigated Trump for possible crimes — there’s a new, three-story banner where he looks down at the street atop the saying “Make American Safe Again.”
A banner showing President Donald Trump hangs on the Department of Justice on Feb. 20, 2026. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
When the Labor banner went up, then-Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer told Trump about it at a Cabinet meeting, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
“Mr. President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor because you are really the transformational president of the American worker,” she told him.
Bonus sighting: As you walk along Pennsylvania Avenue, don’t miss another “Thank You, President Trump” banner hanging on a construction wall across from the National Gallery of Art near 4th Street.
White House ballroom
Status: Walk up Pennsylvania Avenue starting at the 1500 block and you’ll see the White House East Wing is gone. It’s a rubble-laden construction site now, where Trump is trying to build a 90,000 square foot ballroom with a military installation underneath. The project is to be privately funded, though Senate Republicans are seeking $1 billion for security in an immigration bill.
Details: The project is embroiled in a still-evolving legal battle. The April 25 assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where a gunman threatened the president and top officials, may be changing minds.
Demolition work continued where the East Wing once stood at the White House on Dec. 8, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Montana, last month introduced legislation to authorize the ballroom. “A President of any party should be able to host events in a secure area without attendees worrying about their safety. This is common sense. Let’s get it done,” he tweeted.
Last week, Justice sought to have the lawsuit dismissed. “This (ballroom) project will ensure that events like the horrific attack on Saturday night do not happen again,” it argued.
Reflecting Pool
Status: Keep walking toward Constitution Avenue. You’ll see the Reflecting Pool between the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. Renovations are underway and expected to be completed by July 4. The pool is being cleaned and painted blue.
Details: The pool has often been criticized for being dirty and leaking.
Trump’s effort is going a step farther than others who have launched renovation and cleaning projects. He said the project will cost $2 million, far less than other recent refurbishing efforts, according to his TruthSocial website.
Thousands of rallygoers march along the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, March 28, 2026, for the third No Kings day protesting President Donald Trump. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
“It was filthy dirty and it leaked like a sieve for many years,” Trump said in a video posted to the site.
He’s having it painted “swimming pool blue,” a color that appalls many preservationists.
Kennedy Center
Details: The city’s premier cultural center is about a 20-minute walk away. Perhaps no Trump change has provoked more outrage among his Washington critics than his renaming of the capital’s cultural center.
He said during a visit to the center in March 2025 that “it needs a lot of work,” adding it should have better seats and more “Broadway hits.”
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which the center’s board has renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center, a move now challenged in a lawsuit. (Photo courtesy of the Kennedy Center)
The president overhauled its governance, creating a board that named him the center’s chairman, changed programming to suit his tastes, and announced the center would close this summer for two years for renovations.
Status: While the center’s board renamed the site the Trump-Kennedy Center, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio member of the board, has taken legal action in federal court seeking to stop the name change, saying only Congress can do so. The case is pending.
Monumental Arch
Details: Trump wants to build a 250 foot arch — taller than the nearby Lincoln Memorial and the tallest in the world — at the traffic circle at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. The circle leads to the Memorial Bridge across the Potomac, connecting to the Lincoln Memorial.
Status: The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, packed with Trump appointees, approved the arch’s concept design in April.
The arch, the commission said in its approval letter, “would contribute positively to the honorific landscape of Washington, D.C., for many generations.” It requested more information for the next phase, including plans for better pedestrian access and sculptures.
An artist’s rendering of the proposed Monumental Arch President Donald Trump wants to build at the traffic circle at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. (Drawing courtesy Commission of Fine Arts)
Court battles await, notably from a group of Vietnam veterans and others.
They say the arch would distort the clear view from the cemetery to the Lincoln Memorial, as well as disrupt the symbolism of the bridge, designed to join the North and South.
Off the usual paths
Go away from the main tourist routes and there’s yet more evidence of the Trump rebranding. The United States National Institute of Peace is now the Donald J. Trump National Institute of Peace. The change is meant “to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history,” said a State Department tweet.
Then there’s what tourists won’t see.
“Visitors who take the garden tour of the White House this spring will miss the beautiful Rose Garden outside the West Wing and the Jackie Kennedy Garden outside the East Wing, of blessed memory,” said Perry. “Both gardens, planned by the Kennedys, plus the East Wing itself have been obliterated by the incumbent.”
The Rachel Lambert Mellon-designed Rose Garden during the John F. Kennedy administration in 1963, in a collection by the White House Historical Associaion. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)
The Rose Garden, the White House says, “was turned into a patio with roses lining the perimeter, developing a space dedicated to hospitality and entertaining. Today, the Rose Garden is used to host many guests of the president for events and dinners.”
East Potomac Golf Course
While the East Potomac Golf Course isn’t right on the main tourist route, it’s just off to the side on an island not far from the Jefferson Memorial, with a view of the Washington Monument. The Trump administration has reportedly wanted to close and then revamp the historic site. Preservationists and local folks are furious.
Reports say he wants to convert it to a championship golf course — one that some think will make it an exclusive club, instead of the current affordable public setup that’s popular with locals. NOTUS wrote that the National Park Service is scheduled to start landscaping.
The links currently have two nine-hole courses, an 18-hole par 72 course, miniature golf, a driving range and a restaurant.
The East Potomac Golf Course. (Photo courtesy of National Park Service)
The D.C. Preservation League and two local residents Sunday asked a District Court judge to halt any Trump project.
“Trump is taking a public park away from the American people while spending their hard-earned taxpayer dollars to build a private, elite club from which he’d personally profit,” Democracy Defenders Fund Executive Chair Norm Eisen said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes on Monday did not stop the project, saying reports about the course’s overhaul did not provide enough evidence for her to act, but she warned that if she sees that certain renovations are underway she could reconsider.
National Mall Superintendent Kevin Griess said Monday there were no plans to begin renovation work but a safety assessment was underway, The Associated Press reported.
