Donald Trump on Thursday floated a new promenade outside the Lincoln Memorial and said some people wanted to call it the Trump Promenade, a project he said would run toward the Potomac River. The proposal came during a televised White House event, and Trump was seen appearing to doze off shortly before he raised it.
“They wanna call it the Trump Promenade, but I don’t know if I wanna call it that,” he said, before adding, “But it’s beautiful, it’s a beautiful project.” He said it would “take the Lincoln Memorial right down to the Potomac,” a sweeping change for one of the most recognizable stretches of Washington.
Trump framed the idea as a correction to unfinished history, saying the Lincoln Memorial’s front had once been meant to be the back and the back the front, but “it never got built.” The pitch was not just about landscaping. It was about reshaping the approach to a national monument, and about putting his name on the result.
The push also lands in the middle of a broader effort around the memorial and the National Mall. The Trump administration has already spent $5 million of taxpayer money covering four lion statues near the memorial in gold leaf, and another $13 million redoing the Reflecting Pool. Trump has also proposed a 250-foot arch that would overshadow the Lincoln Memorial and would cost at least $100 million.
That is why the moment stood out: a president who appeared to be struggling to stay awake was at the same time advancing one of the more audacious ideas yet for the capital’s central public space. The mismatch between the drowsy delivery and the scale of the proposal gave the announcement an odd edge, but it did not make the idea any smaller.
For now, there is no formal approval, construction timeline or explanation of how the promenade would move forward. The open question is not whether Trump likes the idea. It is whether a project this visible, this expensive and this tied to a major monument can turn from a televised suggestion into actual work on the ground.
