2026-05-29T09:00:08.688Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
美国总统唐纳德·特朗普刚展示完6月白宫UFC赛事的效果图，就将注意力转向了另一组设计方案。
本月早些时候离开椭圆形办公室时，有人听到他向一名助手滔滔不绝地谈论自己最痴迷的建筑项目：东翼舞厅。他称最新的效果图遗漏了部分细节，并要求对方详细说明舞厅众多立柱的设计方案。
这段发生在西翼走廊的简短互动——就在当天美国还在就棘手的伊朗战争停战方案进行谈判——展现了这位总统对自己标志性项目每一处细节的深度参与，以及这些项目正在耗费他多少时间。
特朗普的前任们曾寻求各种方式来保护宝贵的时间：减少决策环节、限制工作人员随意进入椭圆形办公室、用言简意赅的备忘录取代冗长会议。
但在设计和建筑领域，特朗普的行事风格截然不同。从西翼的翻新工程、9万平方英尺的东翼新楼，到华盛顿特区各地的项目，他都会带着材料样本参会，对装修风格和规模比例提出具体反馈。
在周三的内阁会议上，他详细谈到了自己的心头好——甚至还提出了一个新项目：把二战纪念喷泉的底部重新刷漆，就像他处理倒影池那样。周一，从阿灵顿国家公墓阵亡将士纪念日仪式返回后，他花了约6分钟检查北柱廊的立柱，随后才回到室内。上周，他还带记者到户外，花了45分钟介绍舞厅的建设进展。
但美国公众并未对他的东翼拆除和舞厅建设计划抱有善意。一名接近总统的消息人士向CNN透露，他一直等到连任竞选结束后的第二任期才推进这些项目。
“无论怎么看，这在政治上都极具风险。看看大家都在关注这件事，还有他受到的指责，”该消息人士说。
但据熟悉其想法的消息人士透露，在特朗普看来，建筑工程——以及为这些项目应对法律挑战——并非副业；而是其政治遗产的基石。
“我是个非常优秀的建造者。我这辈子最擅长的事就是建造，”上周在舞厅施工的嘈杂声中，特朗普对记者说道。
这位前房地产高管对设计细节的投入细致入微，以至于见过他讨论建筑项目的消息人士都感到惊讶。
“他对技术细节的看法非常自信，”其中一位消息人士在最近一次会议上谈到总统的参与时表示，由于要求匿名才能畅所欲言，他没有透露姓名。
“他会带着布料样本、瓷砖样品，还有你想象不到开发商高层不会带到高级会议上的图片。通常情况下，开发商只会让三级管理层的员工带这些资料参会，”这位消息人士说。
但这位总司令事事都要插手——在南佛罗里达的石材展厅挑选大理石和缟玛瑙，为他的“总统名人步道”选择代表前总统乔·拜登的自动钢笔图案，还要求他提议建造的拱门成为世界最高建筑。
一切始于椭圆形办公室的镀金装饰，这一设计理念后来延伸到了罗斯福厅。
“这是金箔，”特朗普常会对访客说，“不是那种假货。”
白宫的改造并不低调。消息人士称，一旦特朗普确定了想要的效果，就会要求立即付诸行动。
“我有两份工作。一份是总统的本职工作……另一份是建筑工作……这对我来说更像是放松，因为我一辈子都在做这个，”特朗普最近说道。
本周，为下月UFC赛事搭建的临时场馆工程已经占据了白宫场地。南草坪上竖起的巨型建筑甚至从北草坪都能看到。
他已经完成了多个项目。玫瑰花园铺上了石材，并按照他海湖庄园露台的样式重新改造；带有特朗普口吻撰写的人物简介、略带戏谑意味的“总统名人步道”已经沿西柱廊安装完毕，同时铺设了新的花岗岩铺路砖；草坪上新增了巨型旗杆和直升机停机坪。棕榈厅的地板和久负盛名的林肯卧室浴室都已更换为大理石饰面。
特朗普的目光也投向了白宫之外：在市区对面，肯尼迪中心——其外立面如今也冠以他的名字——正在进行全面翻新，需要关闭两年。他正监督倒影池的重新粉刷工作，同时推进巨型拱门（已缩减8英尺高度）的计划。他还在为拉斐特广场修建新人行道，推动为邻近的艾森豪威尔行政办公楼涂刷白色“魔法涂料”，并重启了其第一任期内提出、拜登政府时期被取消的“美国英雄花园”计划。
消息人士称，特朗普在第二任任期内更多地思考自己的政治遗产，而他对白宫和华盛顿特区的改造正是其中的一部分。
“看看唐纳德·特朗普的人生，看看他的成就：建造了永远不会被拆除的建筑，”这位接近总统的消息人士告诉CNN，并指出即使继任者推翻他的政策，舞厅也很可能依然存在。
“他们唯一拆不掉的就是东翼舞厅。这就是他的持久影响力。这也是他如此上心的原因：这关乎政治遗产，”这位消息人士说。
白宫发言人戴维斯·英格尔在给CNN的一份声明中表示，所有人都应该为总统“对白宫和我们国家首都具有历史意义的美化工程，以及赋予它们应得的荣光”而“庆祝”。
法律与政治挑战
特朗普正在耗费政治资本推进其项目。尽管总统多次表示该项目将由私人出资，白宫最近仍向国会施压，要求批准10亿美元用于舞厅相关的安保费用。
“这个舞厅其实是为后世总统建造的，不是为我自己，”上周特朗普在参议院议会裁定其部分资金无法纳入最新共和党预算法案后，试图以此论证舞厅项目的国家必要性。
但熟悉相关情况的参议院助手和其他人士表示，共和党人担心将纳税人资金用于此类项目只会强化选民对共和党脱离群众的印象。上周，共和党人就此事和他的“反武器化”基金与总统公开决裂。
但纳税人预计也将为他的其他一些项目买单——包括拱门、“英雄花园”和倒影池翻新工程的部分费用。
特朗普援引了他在关税和外交政策中常用的广义行政权力观点，这也引发了类似的法律反对声音。
“不仅仅是这些项目占用了他的时间——还要为所有这些案件辩护，”一位曾与特朗普讨论过其项目的消息人士说。
政府已经面临至少10起针对舞厅、拱门等项目的诉讼。许多法律挑战的核心不在于特朗普能否按自己的意愿行事，而在于他是否遵循了关键程序，包括寻求国会批准以及获得华盛顿特区规划委员会的许可。
司法部最高层的律师已被指派在法庭上为总统辩护，辩称其行为符合总统职权范围。
“他的指纹遍布这些案件，就像他在肯尼迪中心座椅内饰的选择上留下的印记一样，”这位消息人士说。
‘The thing I do best in life is build’: How Trump has made construction his second job as president
2026-05-29T09:00:08.688Z / CNN
President Donald Trump had just finished showing off renderings for June’s White House UFC fight when his focus shifted to another set of designs.
As he left the Oval Office earlier this month, he could be heard peppering an associate about his biggest construction obsession: His East Wing ballroom. He claimed portions were missing from the latest renderings and asked for clarity on its many columns.
The brief interaction in the halls of the West Wing — which came on the same day the US was trading proposals on an elusive end to the war with Iran — showed how intimately involved the president is with every detail of his signature project, and how much of his time it’s consuming.
Trump’s predecessors have sought creative ways to protect their valuable time: cutting down on decision-making, limiting staff walk-in access to the Oval Office and replacing meetings with to-the-point memos.
But that’s not Trump’s approach when it comes to design and construction — from updates to the West Wing to the 90,000-square-foot new East Wing to projects across Washington, DC, for which he comes to meetings prepared with swatches and feedback on finishes and scale.
During Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, he talked at length about his pet projects — including positing a new one: repainting the bottom of the fountain at the World War II memorial, like he has with the Reflecting Pool. On Monday, upon returning from a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, he spent roughly six minutes inspecting columns on the North Portico before retreating indoors. And last week, he brought reporters outside for a 45-minute presentation on the ballroom’s progress.
But the American public hasn’t viewed his East Wing demolition and ballroom construction charitably. A source close to the president suggested to CNN that he waited until his second term, when he wouldn’t be running again, to pursue these projects.
“It’s politically toxic, any way you cut it. Look at how everybody’s paying attention to it and the grief he’s been given,” the source said.
In Trump’s view, though, construction — and defending those projects against legal challenges — isn’t a side project; it’s the foundation of his legacy, according to sources familiar with his thinking.
“I’m a really good builder. The thing I do best in life is build,” the president told reporters last week over the raucous sound of ballroom construction.
The former real estate executive involves himself with meticulous design details — to an extent that has surprised sources who have met with him about his construction projects.
“He felt very confident in his opinions about technical details,” one of the sources said about the president’s participation in a recent meeting, requesting anonymity to speak freely.
“He comes with fabric samples, tile samples, images that you wouldn’t see the developer themselves bring to a high-level meeting. You would see the developer’s third rung down the leadership staff bring that to the meeting,” the source said.
But the commander-in-chief inserts himself in all of it — shopping for marble and onyx at a South Florida stone showroom, selecting the image of an auto-pen to represent former President Joe Biden on his “Presidential Walk of Fame,” and demanding that his proposed arch be the tallest in the world.
It started with gilding the Oval Office, a design choice that crept into the Roosevelt Room.
“It’s gold leaf,” Trump is known to tell visitors. “None of the fake stuff.”
And the transformation at the White House hasn’t been subtle. When Trump decides what he wants, he seeks immediate action, sources said.
“I have two jobs. I have a construction job … which is really like relaxation for me because I’ve been doing it all my life,” Trump recently said.
This week, construction on a temporary arena for next month’s UFC fight has taken over the White House grounds. The massive structure erected on the South Lawn is even visible from the North Lawn.
He’s already finished several projects. The Rose Garden has been paved with stone and reconfigured in the image of his Mar-a-Lago patio; the tongue-in-cheek “Presidential Walk of Fame,” with biographies written in Trump’s voice, has been installed along the West Colonnade, plus new granite pavers; Giant new flagpoles and a helipad have been added to the lawn. And the Palm Room flooring and the storied Lincoln Bedroom bathroom have been redone in marble.
Trump has also set his sights beyond the White House: Across town, the Kennedy Center — whose facade also now bears his name — is undergoing a sweeping renovation requiring a two-year closure. He’s overseeing the repainting of the Reflecting Pool, along with plans for the massive arch (which has lost eight feet). He’s building new sidewalks for Lafayette Square, pushing a coat of white “magic paint” for the neighboring Eisenhower Executive Office Building and resurrecting a plan for a “Garden of American Heroes” proposed during his first term and scrapped by the Biden administration.
Trump has spent more time reflecting on his legacy during his second term — and he sees his rebuilding of the White House and Washington, DC, as part of that, sources said.
“Look at Donald Trump’s life, look at what he’s done: Built things that no one will ever tear down,” the source close to the president told CNN, noting that even if successors undo his policies, the ballroom will likely still stand.
“The one thing they can’t tear down will be the East Wing. That is his lasting impact. That’s why he cares so deeply: legacy sh*t,” the source said.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told CNN in a statement that “everyone should celebrate” the president’s “historic beautification of the White House and our Nation’s Capital and giving it the glory it deserves.”
Legal and political challenges
Trump is expending political capital to get his projects done, with the White House recently pressuring Congress to authorize $1 billion for security costs tied to the ballroom, despite the president repeatedly saying the project would be privately funded.
“This is really being built for other presidents, it’s not being built for me,” Trump said last week, trying to make the case for the national imperative of his ballroom after the Senate parliamentarian ruled against some of his funding being in the latest GOP budget bill.
But Republicans have feared spending taxpayer dollars on such a project would only reinforce voters’ perceptions their party is out of touch, Senate aides and others familiar with the matter previously told CNN. The GOP dramatically broke with the president last week over that and his “anti-weaponization” fund.
But taxpayers are also expected to foot costs for some of his other projects — including portions of the arch, the “Garden of Heroes” and the Reflecting Pool renovations.
Trump has leaned on the same expansive view of executive authority that he’s often brought to tariffs or foreign policy — which has prompted similar legal pushback.
“It’s not just the projects taking his time — it’s defending all of these cases,” said the source who has met with Trump about one of his projects.
The administration has been hit with at least 10 lawsuits taking aim at projects from the ballroom to the arch. At the heart of many of these legal challenges isn’t whether Trump can do what he wants to do, but whether he’s followed key processes in doing so, from seeking congressional approval to getting signoff from planning commissions in the nation’s capital.
Lawyers from the highest levels of the Justice Department have been tapped to defend the president in court, arguing that he is acting within his presidential powers.
“His fingerprints are all over these cases the same way they’re all over the choice of upholstery for seats in the Kennedy Center,” said the source.
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