Commissioners rejected a postponement motion 4 to 8 before approving the arch
A 33-page opinion by District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan scrutinized the Trump administration’s competing justifications for its proposed 250-foot arch — particularly its sudden emphasis on national security — and agreed that the local governments challenging the project are likely to be harmed by its construction. “The threatened harms will materialize as soon as construction begins, in part because the traffic disruptions will occur immediately,” Chutkan agreed.
Chutkan issued the order just before midnight, barring the government from any construction work for 14 days and granting a request filed days earlier by the governments of D.C. and Virginia. The administration had told the court it could begin excavation work the same day the commission acted, despite lacking authorization from Congress and facing an expanding legal challenge; the ruling came less than two hours after the vote.
Administration officials have said construction would take place 20 hours a day, year-round, for two to three years. The arch would stand in Memorial Circle, a traffic island on the bridge linking the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery. In addition to questioning its legality, D.C. and Virginia argue the construction would cause financial and logistical disruptions.
Two suits challenge the project. A group of Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian sued the government earlier this year, arguing that an arch is unlawful without Congressional approval, which the administration has not sought. The Democratic governments of D.C. and Virginia jointly filed a similar lawsuit last weekend. Chutkan consolidated the lawsuits and asked the government to notify the court within an hour of commission approval, setting the stage for an 11th-hour ruling.
Thursday started with a protest on Memorial Circle, where dozens of people spoke against the arch. The grass underfoot was already marked with white paint. Lawyers for the government told the court in a midday filing that the lines were painted on Saturday by its designated construction firm, seemingly without authorization from the National Park Service.
The commission’s meeting began at 1 p.m. and was held virtually because of the volume of testimony: 131 people were signed up to speak. The livestream crashed minutes into public testimony, lengthening the meeting by about an hour until it was restored. The commission heard nearly eight hours of impassioned pleas from veterans, lawmakers, residents and concerned citizens opposed to the structure. Over the course of nearly nine hours, commissioners heard from dozens of veterans and their relatives, Democratic lawmakers, historic preservation experts and concerned citizens from D.C. and beyond. Only a handful of speakers offered support for the arch, including Republican Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Brian Mast of Florida, both of whom are veterans.
Critics said the structure would obstruct an important view, insult service members buried at nearby Arlington National Cemetery and add a layer of risk to the notoriously complicated D.C. airspace. They have also questioned its legality and its cost, which the administration has not confirmed. Many speakers described the arch as part of an effort by Trump to memorialize himself in the nation’s capital, and called the Democrats’ midterm sweep this past Tuesday a referendum against the project.
“Leaving aside all of the legitimate concerns and challenges about the required approvals, funding, land use, single-source bidding, and peer review, the American people spoke this past Tuesday at the ballot box,” said former D.C. resident Emi Yamauchi. “They said enough vanity projects, enough corruption, enough Reflecting Pool travesties.”
Much of the testimony was personal. Many speakers said they had family members buried at Arlington National Cemetery — or plans for their own future burials there — and several implored the commissioners not to ruin their reputations by recording their support for the arch. “[These are] warnings about the threat your own behavior poses to your political power, your moral authority, the legacy you leave to your descendants, and your eternal souls,” said Stephen Eubank, some seven hours into the testimony.
As the night wore on, a few speakers questioned whether the commissioners — who were not shown on screen — were even listening. Many suggested the approval was a foregone conclusion, noting the political makeup of the commission and that Trump-appointed Chair Mark Paoletta and several other members had voiced support for the arch at the start of the meeting.
The commission began deliberating just before 10 p.m., and the discussion lasted less than an hour. The commissioners who spoke first were Trump allies and appointees, who thanked the speakers for their time but expressed support for moving forward, casting the arch as a tribute to the nation and those who served despite pushback from individual veterans and veterans’ groups. They dismissed concerns that the arch would violate D.C.’s restrictions on building heights as well as federal environmental and historic preservation laws, and maintained that Congress authorized the project when it approved a pair of 166-foot columns on Memorial Circle in 1925 — columns that were never built.
The allies also pointed to recent claims by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the monument will enhance national security, even though officials at the meeting confirmed that no such analysis or details were included in the final submission. Interior Department official Greg Wischer said “specific national security functions have been filed under seal” in court, but that the National Park Service “has not been privy to any national defense preparations.”
The most vocal criticism of the arch came from D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, a Democrat who sits on the council. He asked questions about the arch’s purpose — military and otherwise — earlier in the meeting and said, during deliberations, that he was dissatisfied with the government’s contradictory answers. “We cannot approve final site and building plans until we have the final site and building plan,” Mendelson said. He introduced a motion to postpone the vote until those plans could be submitted, or until the commission’s next meeting in early December; it failed, 4 to 8. Vice Chair Stuart Levenbach, a Trump appointee, expressed concerns about delaying the vote because the “project proponent is under a time constraint and wants the decision today,” suggesting the government wants to “commence building very quickly.” Within minutes, the commission approved the arch, and the administration notified the court within half an hour.
Reaction was swift. Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement: “While this decision prevents Donald Trump from immediately implementing his plans to create a monument to his own ego, the courts and Congress must put in place permanent safeguards to stop the Trump Administration from violating the law and proceeding with this project.” Historic preservation groups wasted no time criticizing both the process and the outcome. Brent Leggs, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, called the vote a “sham” that “undermines the democratic process, violates federal statute, and insults our nation’s veterans who have made the ultimate sacrifice.” “From the start, this Arch project has been driven by an artificial sense of urgency, while public opposition has been brushed aside,” Leggs said in a statement. Jimi Shaughnessy, veterans program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement that the group is disappointed but not surprised, and vowed to “bring this to members of Congress, to ensure this arch is never built. Not here. Not ever.”
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen — the consumer rights nonprofit representing the veterans in their lawsuit — told NPR on Thursday that Congress does not need to act to stop the arch because it never actively approved it; that decision, he said, will be up to the courts. Still, he added: “It would be fine if Congress takes additional measures to block construction, since we’ve seen this lawless administration circumvent the law and court orders so frequently.” Many Democratic lawmakers have vowed to stop — and investigate — the arch after they regain a Congressional majority in January. Beyer has introduced a bill that would prohibit and defund the project and said Thursday he expects the number of co-sponsors to grow from 80 to at least 200 in the new year. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, warned commissioners that companies and “officials working to advance a project not authorized by Congress will put themselves at legal risk.” He argued that the project violates federal environmental and historic preservation laws, which fall within the jurisdiction of the House committee he expects to soon lead. “I urge all officials and firms involved with this illegal project to consider the legal hazards they may be facing by advancing it, because, in case you hadn’t heard, we’ll soon have a new Congress that takes the rule of law very seriously,” Huffman said.