I did it again. Twenty-Two Billion Dollars. For an airport. Because nobody does airports like I do, nobody. Dulles International Airport, named after a very great man, a very smart man, a man who understood the Deal — and it’s been sitting there since 1962 with those little buses, those mobile lounges. Very cute, very nostalgic. The Fake News Media, like Shaimaa Khalil over at the BBC, she rode one of the people movers, and the travelers she spoke to gave the honest answer: modernization is needed, yes, but the lounges are a little nostalgic. Nostalgia! Can you believe it? The Radical Left says the lounges are not being replaced because they failed. They say they are being replaced because they carry the wrong aesthetic. WRONG. They carry a very beautiful aesthetic, but we need a polished silhouette that photographs well from Air Force One! Sixty-three years of working hardware, slated for the scrapyard so that the capital can match a mood board. MY mood board. The best mood board, believe me.
I called up the best people, the best architects, and I said, we’re going to build the most beautiful airport in the history of airports. Bigger than LaGuardia. Bigger than the new one they built in China, much bigger. The historians are going to say it’s the best renovation since — well, since I renovated the White House, which was a total disaster before I got there. So the mobile lounges, these buses that drive you out to the plane — the drivers are tremendous people, very loyal — but I said, we’re replacing them. A train system. The greatest train system you’ve ever seen. Longer than the one they have in Dubai, and Dubai has a lot of trains. People are coming from all over the world just to see this train. They’re going to say, “Very few people could have done it.”
And the concourses — we’re building new ones. I’ve approved the plans. The plans are PERFECT. The people who designed them, very smart people, they came to me with tears in their eyes, “Sir, Sir, these are the best concourses ever designed.” And I said, “Of course they are. Because I am involved.”
Now, the money. Twenty-two billion. I negotiated that myself. I said, “We’re going to make the capital city beautiful — the most beautiful capital city in the world.” This is all part of my wider initiatives to beautify the capital city. The public’s wallet? They should be HONORED to underwrite the photo op! I have a very strong instinct for these things because my uncle was a great professor at MIT. The smartest man. He told me, years ago, before anyone else, “You will fix the airports.” I always said this was going to happen. Exactly what I predicted. Very smart predictions.
And it’s not just Dulles. Look at New York. Last month, the low energy leaders in New York questioned my $8 Billion Penn Station plan. They said I’m using infrastructure dollars to set the look of cities I don’t run. Dulles is Penn Station with a longer driveway! And don’t even get me started on the other plans, like the beautiful library in Palm Beach where they wanted to put the Air Force One. Some people said there were hurdles, very unfair, a hit piece — but we are moving. We are moving.
They whine about the 1962 bet that an airport could be humane, weird, and a little strange. My answer? Flatten that bet into a beautiful, sleek terminal with a people-mover shaped like every other people-mover, paid for by taxpayers who will never see a concourse renovation memo before I announce it! I look at them, standing in security line, taking off their shoes, holding their little liquids, and I think — why DO they believe me? They believe anything. Beautiful manipulation, beautiful. Anyway, the train is going to be TREMENDOUS. The bill is arriving. And the bill, as always, is the POINT. They’re paying!
My uncle, the great MIT professor, would have been so proud — he always said I would build the best trains.