President Donald Trump is ready to take on his next renovation.
The president is shutting down the busiest public golf course in Washington, D.C. on Sunday so that he can rip it up and turn it into what he envisions as another over-the-top homage to his own power.
The National Park Service will begin landscaping and clearing trees at the East Potomac Golf Links on Monday, while the president develops a complete redesign, NOTUS reported.
A man golfs at the East Potomac Golf Links. The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty Im
“This news was a complete surprise to us,” a spokesman for The National Links Trust, the most recent leaseholder of the golf course, told NOTUS. “For the sake of our community and employees, we hope to have clarity as soon as possible. We remain committed to our mission, our community, and working to protect the public golf courses in Washington, D.C. for the benefit of the entire community.”
Meanwhile, top Trump fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke is seeking donations to help pay for Trump’s plans to dramatically remake parts of Washington’s waterfront, including the new “championship” golf course and a proposed National Garden of American Heroes, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.
The overhaul would encompass the course as well as West Potomac Park, federally owned land along the National Mall now used for recreation, sports, and other public events. The garden would honor “hundreds of historically significant Americans,” according to the newly created National Garden of American Heroes Foundation, raising questions about how much of the land would remain accessible to the public.
Some 250 names have been pitched for the garden of life-sized statues, including controversial figures like Christopher Columbus, who was not American. The statues alone could cost more than the $40 million already approved for the project. Others suggested in the 2021 executive order—before Trump’s big anti-DEI push—included astronaut Sally Ride, Amelia Earhart, NBA star Kobe Bryant, Frank Sinatra, Walt Whitman, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and polio vaccine creator Jonas Salk. It’s Trump’s version of Mount Rushmore.
The specifics of the overhaul plan have not been shared publicly by Trump or by his Interior Department officials.
“President Donald J. Trump is fulfilling his commitment to make D.C. Safe and Beautiful as shown by record low crime rates and renovations to fountains across the capital,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement to NOTUS, which emphasized the “affordability” of the golf course project.
The land grab is the latest example of Trump’s manhandling of publicly owned American landmarks, including his gaudy gold Oval Office makeover, tearing down the White House’s historic East Wing to replace it with a 90,000-square-foot ballroom (also gilded), and the blue resurfacing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which a shirtless Trump appeared to lounge in with the help of an AI post on Truth Social.