Dozens protest Trump's 250-foot D.C. arch at Memorial Circle

Arch moves toward final approval after preservation review ends

Dozens of activists gathered at Memorial Circle in Washington, D.C., at rush hour Thursday to protest the 250-foot arch President Trump wants to build there, according to NPR. Veterans, retirees and lawmakers spoke against its scale, its cost, its lack of congressional approval, its gaudiness and its intrusion on nearby Arlington National Cemetery, standing next to a mockup made of tarp. The real arch, they said, would be 32 times taller.

The protest, billed as “Vets over Vanity,” was organized in part by Public Citizen, the group leading a lawsuit against the arch. Jon Gundersen, a retired Army veteran and former Foreign Service officer who is one of the Vietnam War veterans suing the Trump administration over the structure, traveled from South Carolina to speak. “It’s the wrong monument, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, dedicated to the wrong man,” Gundersen said. He told NPR it was “heartening” to see so much support for the cause. “Anyone I talk to, whether Republican or Democrat, they say it’s a waste of money and it’s not how you honor vets,” he said.

Many speakers focused on the arch towering over Arlington National Cemetery and criticized the lack of input from veterans and gold star families in the process. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said she and her husband will one day join those at rest there. “I am pissed that the five-time draft dodging coward of a commander-in-chief sitting over there in the White House dares to dishonor the men and women of this country who have put on her collars and sacrificed and served and now lay at rest in the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery,” Duckworth said.

The White House has told NPR that the arch will “enhance the visitor experience” at the cemetery and serve “as a visual reminder of the noble sacrifices borne by so many American heroes.” Duckworth and others said a better way to honor veterans would be spending money on improving services for them, not on a triumphal arch with an observation deck. “Imagine tourists coming up to this arch looking at the 24 to 27 funerals up there in Arlington,” Gundersen said. “It’s not only wrong and inappropriate, it’s obscene and should never [be] done.”

During the half-hour of rapid-fire speeches, the crowd burst into loud applause and sporadic chants of “no arch!” and, at one point, a coordinated rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” Cyclists and commuters passing by offered supportive waves and honks. Planes flew overhead every few minutes, a constant reminder that the arch would stand along the approach of one of the nation’s busiest airport runways, and several speakers addressed the aviation safety concerns raised by the structure and by Trump’s recent announcement that it will house military drones and snipers.

“Who are the snipers going to shoot — the families at the graves or the tourists at the Lincoln Memorial?” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said from the podium. “The real explanation is Trump thinks he’s going to lose in court, and maybe if he shouts national security, the Supreme Court will care.” The White House, Department of Interior and Federal Aviation Administration have not responded to NPR’s questions about the military complex, and the administration has not elaborated publicly on what rebranding the structure could mean for the ongoing federal approval process.

Administration officials told historic preservation groups in a Tuesday Zoom call that they were unaware of any new submissions and planned to move forward with the original arch proposal, according to a transcript and recording later shared with NPR. The arch is widely expected to come before the National Capital Planning Commission at its next meeting in early November.

The National Park Service had been in conversation with outside groups to negotiate how to build the arch while doing the least harm to the dozens of nearby protected landmarks, and had already dismissed experts’ suggestions to build it elsewhere. Then, in the last week of September — just days after Trump’s military complex announcement — the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation terminated the review process altogether, an end announced in an email to historic preservation groups reviewed by NPR.

Charles Birnbaum, who participated in the process as head of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, said he was appalled that the council cut the review short after only two meetings. He recalled that happening only twice in the 15 years he previously spent working for the National Park Service. “Projects go to the advisory council when there is a stalemate that people have tried to negotiate with state preservation officers, with stakeholders, and there is an authenticity to that process,” Birnbaum said. The council now says it will give its recommendations directly to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum by Oct. 7. “They’re going to force this upon the process and they’re going to nullify outside voices. And what this is symbolic of is where the administration is taking the nation,” Birnbaum said, referring to the council’s efforts to roll back protections for historic sites nationwide. A bipartisan permitting reform bill gaining traction in Congress would also weaken those protections, he said.

Protesters on Thursday vowed not to let the arch proceed but braced for the possibility that it might. “We have to continue to call in to our senators, our congresspeople,” said Julius D. “JD” Spain Sr., a member of the Arlington County Board. “And if it is built, if somehow it is built, I will get my chisel and I’ll be right over there with everybody tearing it down.” Beyer, whose district includes Arlington, told NPR afterward that there is a “huge body of people ready to protest the moment they see a shovel.” “I don’t know how this will play out, whether we end up with tents or hunger strikes, but I know that the American people are ready to protest in any way they can,” he said.

Congress could still stop the arch by blocking federal funding for the project, though a single Republican senator earlier this week blocked Democrats’ attempts to halt the arch’s construction as well as the demolition of the Kennedy Center. “We could stop this today if the Republican majority stepped up and grew a backbone and would oppose Trump,” Duckworth told NPR in a phone interview Wednesday. Next month’s midterm elections could change the balance of power in Congress — and, if Democrats prevail, spell bad news for the arch starting in January.