Politics
Reporter’s Notebook: Trump’s SAVE Act ultimatum runs into Senate reality
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Passage of the SAVE America Act is of paramount importance to President Donald Trump and many congressional Republicans.
In his State of the Union speech, the president implored lawmakers “to approve the SAVE America Act to stop illegal aliens and other unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections.”
The House approved the plan to require proof of citizenship to vote last month, 218-213. There’s now a different version of the legislation that’s in play. And, as is often the case, the hurdle is the Senate. Specifically, the Senate filibuster.
Attendees listen as Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, speaks at an “Only Citizens Vote” bus tour rally advocating passage of the SAVE Act at Upper Senate Park outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 10, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
So some Republicans are trying to save the SAVE America Act.
It’s important to note that Trump never called for the Senate to alter the filibuster in his State of the Union address. But in a post last week on Truth Social, Trump declared, “The Republicans MUST DO, with PASSION, and at the expense of everything else, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.”
Again, the president didn’t wade into questions about overcoming a filibuster. But “MUST DO” and “at the expense of everything else” is a clear directive from the commander in chief.
That’s why there’s a big push by House Republicans and some GOP senators to alter the filibuster — or handle the Senate filibuster differently.
It’s rare for members of one body of Congress to tell the other how to execute their rules and procedures. But the strongest conservative advocates of the SAVE America Act are now condemning Senate Republicans if they don’t do something drastic to change the filibuster to pass the measure.
Some Senate Republicans are pushing for changes, or at the very least, advocating that Senate Republicans insist that Democrats conduct what they refer to as a “talking filibuster” and not hold up the legislation from the sidelines. It takes 60 votes to terminate a filibuster. The Senate does that by “invoking cloture.” The Senate first used the cloture provision to halt a filibuster on March 8, 1917. Prior to that vote, the only method to end a filibuster was exhaustion — meaning that senators finally just run out of gas, quit debating and finally voted.
So let’s explore what a filibuster is and isn’t and dive into what Republicans are talking about when they’re talking about a talking filibuster.
The Senate’s leading feature is unlimited debate. But, ironically, the “debate” which holds up most bills is not debate. It’s simply a group of 60 lawmakers signaling offstage to their leaders that they’ll stymie things. No one has to go to the floor to do anything. Opponents of a bill will require the majority tee up a cloture vote — even if legislation has 60 yeas. Each cloture vote takes three to four days to process. So that inherently slows down the process — and is a de facto filibuster.
But what about talking filibusters? Yes, senators sometimes take the floor and talk for a really long time, hence, the “unlimited debate” provision in the Senate. Senators can generally speak as long as they want, unless there’s a time agreement green-lighted by all 100 members.
That’s why a “filibuster” is hard to define. You won’t find the word “filibuster” in the Senate’s rules. And since senators can just talk as long as they want, they might argue that suggesting they are “filibustering” is pejorative. They’re just exercising their Senate rights to speak on the floor.
A true filibuster is a delay. For instance, the record-breaking 25-hour and 8-minute speech last year by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., against the Trump administration was technically not a filibuster. Booker began his oratory on the evening of March 31, ending on the night of April 1. Once Booker concluded, the Senate voted to confirm Matt Whittaker as NATO ambassador. The Senate was supposed to vote on the Whitaker nomination on April 1 anyway. So all Booker’s speech did was delay that confirmation vote by a few hours. But not much.
In October 2013, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, held the floor for more than 21 hours. It was part of Cruz’s quest to defund Obamacare. But despite Cruz’s verbosity (and a recitation of Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Suess), the Senate was already locked in to take a procedural vote around 1 p.m. the next day. Preparations for that vote automatically ended Cruz’s speech. Thus, it truly wasn’t a filibuster either.
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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during an oversight hearing in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 17, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
So, this brings us to the talking filibuster which actually gums up the Senate gearboxes. A talking filibuster is what most Americans think of when they hear the term “filibuster.” That’s thanks to the iconic scenes with Jimmy Stewart in the Frank Capra classic, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Most senators filibuster by forcing the Senate to take two cloture votes — spread out over days — to handle even the simplest of matters. That elongates the process by close to a week. But if advocates of a given bill have the votes to break the filibuster via cloture, the gig is up.
However, what happens if a senator — or a group of senators delay things with long speeches? That can only last for so long. And it could potentially truncate the Senate’s need to take any cloture vote, needing 60 yeas.
Republicans who advocate passage of the SAVE America Act believe they can get around cloture — and thus the need for 60 votes — by making opponents of the legislation talk. And talk. And talk.
And once they’re done talking, the Senate can vote — up or down — on the SAVE Act. Passage requires a simple majority. The Senate never even needs to tangle with 60.
Senate Rule XIX (19) states that “no senator shall speak more than twice upon any one question in debate on the same legislative day.”
Easy enough, right? Two speeches per day. You speak twice on Monday, then you have to wait until Tuesday? Democrats would eventually run out of juice after all 47 senators who caucus with Democrats have their say — twice.
But it’s not that simple. Note the part about two speeches per “question.”
Well, here’s a question. What constitutes a “question” in Senate parlance? A “question” could be the bill itself. It could be an amendment. It could be a motion. And just for the record, the Senate usually cycles through a “first-degree” amendment and then a “second-degree” amendment — to say nothing of the bill itself. So, if you’re scoring at home, that could be six (!) speeches per senator, per day, on any given “question.”
Questions?
But wait. There’s more.
Note that Rule XIX refers to a “legislative day.” A legislative day is not the same as a calendar day. One basic difference is if the Senate “adjourns” each night versus “recessing.” If the Senate “adjourns” its Monday session on calendar day Monday, then a new legislative day begins on Tuesday. However, the legislative day of “Monday” carries over to Tuesday if the Senate “recesses.”
It may be up to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., whether the Senate “adjourns” or “recesses.” The creation of a new legislative day inhibits the GOP talking filibuster effort.
SEN LEE DARES DEMOCRATS TO REVIVE TALKING FILIBUSTER OVER SAVE ACT, SLAMMING CRITICISM AS ‘PARANOID FANTASY’
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., center, arrives for a news conference after a policy luncheon on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in Washington. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP Photo)
Democrats would obviously push for the Senate to adjourn each day. But watch to see if talking filibuster proponents object to Thune’s daily adjournment requests. If the Senate votes to stay in session, that forces the legislative day of Monday to bleed over to Tuesday.
Pro tip: Keep an eye on the adjournment vs. recess scenario. If a talking filibuster supporter tries to prevent the Senate from adjourning, that may signal whether the GOP has a shot at eventually passing the SAVE Act. If that test vote fails and the Senate adjourns for the day, the SAVE Act is likely dead in the water.
We haven’t even talked about a custom practiced by most Senate majority leaders to lock down the contours of a bill when they file cloture to end debate.
It’s typical for the presiding officer to recognize the Senate majority leader first on the floor for debate. So Thune and his predecessors often “fill” what’s called the “amendment tree.” The amendment tree dictates how many amendments are in play at any one time. Think of the underlying bill as a “trunk.” A “branch” is for the first amendment. A “sprig” from that branch is the second amendment. Majority leaders often load up the amendment tree with “fillers” that don’t change the subject of the bill. He then files cloture to break the filibuster.
That tactic curbs the universe of amendments. It blocks the other side from engineering controversial amendments to alter the bill. But if Thune doesn’t file cloture to end debate, then the Senate must consider amendment after amendment, repeatedly filling the tree and voting on those amendments. This would unfold during a talking filibuster, not when Thune is controlling the process by filing cloture and “filling the tree.”
This is why Thune is skeptical of a talking filibuster to pass the SAVE Act.
“This process is more complicated and risky than people are assuming at the moment,” said Thune.
In fact, the biggest “benefit” to filing cloture may not even be overcoming a filibuster, but blocking amendments via management of the tree. Republicans are bracing for amendments Democrats may offer.
“If you don’t think Democrats have a laundry list of amendments, talking about who won the 2020 election, talking about the Epstein files — if you don’t think they have a quiver full of these amendments that they’re ready to get Republican votes on the record, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you,” said George Washington University political science professor Casey Burgat.
Plus, forcing a talking filibuster for days precludes the Senate from passing a DHS funding bill. That’s to say nothing of confirming Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., as Homeland Security secretary. His confirmation hearing likely comes next Wednesday, but a protracted Senate debate would block a confirmation vote from the floor.
JEFFRIES ACCUSES REPUBLICANS OF ‘VOTER SUPPRESSION’ OVER BILL REQUIRING VOTER ID, PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Republican from Oklahoma, addresses reporters at the U.S. Capitol after being tapped as President Donald Trump’s new nominee to lead DHS, March 5, 2026. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Thune all but killed the talking filibuster maneuver on Tuesday — despite the president’s ultimatum.
“Do you run a risk of being on the wrong side of President Trump and your resistance to do this talking filibuster, tying the Senate in knots for weeks?” asked yours truly.
“We don’t have the votes either to proceed, get on a talking filibuster, nor to sustain one if we got on it,” replied Thune. “I understand the president’s got a passion to see this issue addressed.”
I followed up.
“Does he understand that, though?”
“Well, we’ve conveyed that to him,” answered Thune. “It’s about the math. And, for better or worse, I’m the one who has to be a clear-eyed realist about what we can achieve here.”
And there just doesn’t appear to be any parliamentary way to get there with the talking filibuster.
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Like many things in Congress, it all boils down to one thing.
As Thune said, “it’s about the math.”
President Trump is trying to use the levers of the federal government, along with personal influence over state and local lawmakers, to reshape the rules governing the 2026 midterms and future elections in extraordinary ways.
Many of these efforts have been blocked by courts, stymied by the Constitution or stopped in Congress. But the relentless assault by the president on the electoral process — both administratively and rhetorically — is likely to sow doubt and lay groundwork for extensive challenges to election results.
Agencies and officials across the federal government have, at the direction of Mr. Trump, undertaken dozens of actions grounded in novel strategies and aimed at insulating Republicans from potential losses in November. Those actions fall into six major categories (and some fall into more than one).
Taking steps to nationalize elections
The United States Constitution puts control over elections in the hands of the states and grants Congress the ability to pass federal election legislation. It gives no explicit authority to the executive branch.
But in early February, Mr. Trump said he wanted the Republican-led federal government to “nationalize” or “take over” the running of elections. “A state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” he said.
Mr. Trump had already, in March 2025, signed an executive order seeking broad authority over elections. The order required documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and mandated the return of mail ballots by Election Day. Those were almost universally blocked by courts, which found that the order clearly violated the separation of powers and exceeded the president’s authority.
But another provision, which instructed the U.S. attorney general to hunt for and prosecute election crimes, has been used to justify sprawling efforts by the Justice Department related to elections.
The Justice Department began demanding the complete voter files — state databases of registered voters that include sensitive personal identifying information — from every state as it worked to compile the largest set of national voter roll data it has ever collected.
More than half the states — many under Democratic control but some run by Republicans, too — have resisted this effort. In response, the Justice Department has sued at least 30 states and territories, seeking to force them to turn over their unredacted voter rolls. At least 16 states have provided or indicated an intention to turn over their lists, according to tracking from the Brennan Center for Justice.
In January, Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, requested that Minnesota turn over its voter rolls to “bring back law and order” amid protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Minnesota officials dismissed the request as “outrageous.”
Though the Justice Department has yet to win a single lawsuit — it has lost at least 10 so far, as well as one federal appeal — election officials and Democrats fear the battle over voting records may be used in a post-election effort to challenge, discredit or spread disinformation about midterm results.
Acting on the same executive order, the Department of Homeland Security has been combing voter rolls for noncitizens who have voted. It has not found evidence of widespread fraud, and a federal judge barred the administration from letting states use a federal citizenship data tool to screen their voter rolls.
In March 2026, Mr. Trump signed a second executive order regarding voting policy, this time seeking to create state-by-state lists of citizens that would be used to determine voting eligibility and restrict the use of mail ballots. It was immediately challenged by nearly half the states and multiple voting rights groups. A federal judge sided with the states’ argument, blocking key provisions of the executive order.
Before that court decision, the United States Postal Service proposed a rule that would allow the agency to refuse to deliver mail ballots in states that didn’t turn over voter rolls to the federal government. The postmaster general has said the service will abide by any court order.
Separate from the executive orders, senior Justice Department officials last year began exploring whether they could bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the administration determined they had not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems.
Democrats fear that the president could weaponize federal agencies on or after Election Day. Mr. Trump told The New York Times last year that he regretted not seizing voting machines after the 2020 election.
Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, defended the president’s actions and policies regarding elections.
“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters,” she said in a statement. Ms. Jackson also pointed to a few specific examples of noncitizens who were charged with illegal voting and noted other ongoing investigations. She reiterated the president’s desire to pass federal voting legislation that would enshrine many of his voting objectives into law.
“Noncitizens voting is a crime,” Ms. Jackson said. “Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable.”
Trying to tighten voting restrictions
While Mr. Trump’s attempts to use executive orders to change elections have been largely blocked by courts, the president and his allies have found other avenues to add new restrictions to voting that are designed to help them win at the ballot box.
Soon after Mr. Trump took office, the Justice Department dropped or halted all of its open voting rights lawsuits that preceded Mr. Trump’s inauguration, easing the path for partisan gerrymanders and voting laws to withstand legal scrutiny. That included dropping a lawsuit against a voting law in Georgia.
The number of lawyers working in the voting-rights arm of the Justice Department, one of the government’s critical bulwarks against civil rights abuses in voting and elections, has dwindled from about 30 at the end of the Biden administration to the single digits after resignations, cuts and reassignments.
Last year, the Trump administration joined a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee against Mississippi that said the state’s policy of accepting mail and absentee ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but arrived in a short period afterward violated federal election law. (Far more Democrats than Republicans vote by mail.)
On Monday, the Supreme Court upheld Mississippi’s grace period.
The president has also sought to force Congress to pass voting legislation that would codify many parts of his executive orders into federal law. The legislation, called the SAVE America Act, would, among other things, require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote as well as photo identification to vote. It would also require states to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans lack the votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster and pass the legislation, but the president has continued to pressure Republicans to force a vote, threatening not to sign any nonbudgetary bills until it is passed.
Pushing for mid-decade redistricting
Perhaps no strategy embraced by Mr. Trump was more explicitly designed to prevent a midterm loss than the mid-decade redistricting wars of the past year.
Last summer, Mr. Trump and his allies at the White House began encouraging Texas Republicans to take the rare step of redrawing their congressional maps to try to save the party’s endangered majority.
By November, forcing Republican-led states to redraw their maps was at the center of Mr. Trump’s strategy to win the midterms and prevent Democratic control of the House of Representatives.
Texas, North Carolina and Missouri quickly redrew their congressional maps, netting seven new Republican-leaning districts. Ohio redrew its map as required by state law, adding as many as two new Republican-leaning districts.
Democrats responded by introducing aggressive gerrymanders in California and Virginia, which appeared to bring the redistricting wars to a draw — until the Supreme Court weakened a key component of the Voting Rights Act in April. After the ruling, Tennessee redrew its maps to eliminate the lone Democratic-held seat in the state, and Louisiana and Alabama quickly followed with new maps that would each eliminate another Democratic-controlled district.
At the same time, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the Democratic gerrymander in the state, effectively eliminating four new Democratic-leaning districts and handing Republicans a multi-seat structural advantage heading into the midterms.
Cutting election security
The Trump administration has gutted key elements of the nation’s election security infrastructure. Experts warn that the changes could reduce visibility into nationwide cyberattacks and foreign influence campaigns while making it more difficult for state and local election officials to coordinate defensive operations.
Early in his second term, Mr. Trump signed two directives that administration officials have used to justify the dismantling of these programs.
The administration has weakened the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, terminated an F.B.I. task force aimed at combatting foreign influence in U.S. elections and ended a program responsible for sharing threat intelligence with state and local officials.
The actions are rooted in longstanding grievances from Mr. Trump and his allies, who have argued that, under the guise of fighting misinformation and disinformation, the Biden administration infringed on free speech.
In his first budget request to Congress, Mr. Trump proposed eliminating CISA’s disinformation offices, accusing them of “conspiring against the First Amendment rights of President Trump and his supporters.”
Mr. Trump’s attacks on CISA also reflect his animosity toward Christopher Krebs, the agency’s former director who oversaw efforts to secure the 2020 election and infuriated Mr. Trump by publicly debunking his lies about that election.
Undermining faith in the electoral system by questioning previous results
Mr. Trump refuses to concede that he lost the 2020 election and has used the White House to both legitimize and seek evidence supporting his debunked conspiracy theories.
On his first day back in office, he granted clemency to the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Later, he introduced a page on the White House website falsely accusing Democrats of promoting a “gaslighting narrative” in their efforts to certify the “stolen election.”
Mr. Trump also ordered Tulsi Gabbard, then the director of national intelligence, to help manage an F.B.I. investigation of his baseless claims of voting irregularities in Fulton County, Ga. The move came after a team led by Ms. Gabbard seized voting machines from Puerto Rico to examine them for vulnerabilities.
The administration has also issued subpoenas for 2020 election records in Maricopa County, Ariz.; requested access to voting equipment used in Missouri; and, based on disproven allegations about the 2020 election, demanded 2024 election records from Wayne County, Mich. Last month, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles broke with decades of precedent in predicting election fraud charges related to California’s primary races while votes were still being counted.
In May, the Justice Department announced it was setting up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claimed to be victims of government “weaponization,” which would most likely include people who stormed the Capitol in 2021. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said on June 2 that the fund would not move forward, but Mr. Trump later said he still loved the idea.
Mr. Trump has stocked his second administration with people who are sympathetic to his denial of the 2020 election results. These officials have been put into positions where they could play a role in undermining this year’s and future elections.
Where Trump has installed election deniers in government
Punishing those who have worked against election denialism
While Mr. Trump has long used grievance as a political tool, retribution against his perceived enemies has become a centerpiece of his second administration. Much of that retribution has targeted anyone who has investigated the Jan. 6 attack or pushed back on his 2020 election denial.
Within hours of retaking office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order asserting that the Biden administration had engaged “in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents” and directing federal agencies to seek evidence that it did so.
The administration has purged F.B.I. agents and government attorneys who worked on investigations of Mr. Trump or his allies, revoked security clearances from dozens of people as punishment for alleged misconduct and opened investigations into Mr. Trump’s supposed “enemies.”
It has also sought to target ordinary citizens. In April, the Justice Department issued a federal grand jury subpoena demanding the identities of every person who worked on the 2020 election in Fulton County, Ga. The county’s motion to block the subpoena characterized it as intended “to target, harass and punish the president’s perceived political opponents.” The effort remains tied up in the courts.
As the only president in United States history to seek to overturn an election result, Mr. Trump has spent years using social media and campaign rallies to sow doubt about the integrity of U.S. elections. He continues to do so, but now he also wields the authority to direct his cabinet secretaries and other political appointees to implement his agenda. All of Mr. Trump’s directives underlying the above agency actions are based on several debunked election-related conspiracy theories, including:
His claim that undocumented immigrants vote illegally in large numbers.
“They want illegal immigrants to come in, criminals, doesn’t matter because they want to get their votes.”
— Republican fundraiser, March 25, 2026
His spreading of debunked claims of widespread fraud related to mail-in ballots …
“Mail-in ballots are corrupt. Mail-in ballots, you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots.”
— White House remarks, Aug. 18, 2025
… and voting machines.
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”
— Truth Social post, Aug. 18, 2025
Broader unsubstantiated claims he has made of widespread voting fraud that include people voting multiple times or assuming dead people’s identities to vote.
“Every day you read in the papers about more and more fraud that’s discovered.”
— White House remarks, April 9, 2025
And finally, his belief in a “deep state” embedded in the government that has worked against him and other Republicans.
“We’re going to find the deep-state actors who have buried into government, fire them and escort them from federal buildings.”
— Campaign rally, Jan. 28, 2023
While many of Mr. Trump’s directives have been blocked or delayed by the courts, election experts say that their potential harm remains significant, and that some of the efforts have already eroded faith in the process.
“The point of so much of this campaign is not actually to change policy because they know they don’t actually have the authority to change policy,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program. “It’s to inject distrust and confusion into our elections, both to discourage people from participating and to lay the groundwork for calling elections into question after the fact.”
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The Trump administration is set to unveil a sweeping overhaul of federal appliance efficiency rules that officials say will end “Green New Scam” appliance mandates, restore consumer choice, and block future federal crackdowns on gas stoves, fluorescent lightbulbs, HVAC systems, and other household appliances.
“In America, you should be able to choose between a drying machine that takes multiple cycles to dry your clothes and one that does it on the first try — unfortunately, past administrations thought otherwise,” Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News Digital.
The Department of Energy is expected to propose a sweeping rewrite of federal appliance regulations that would change how energy-efficiency standards are written, creating what the Trump administration says is a permanent safeguard against future efforts to regulate household appliances. The proposal was viewed by Fox News Digital.
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The Trump administration plans a sweeping overhaul of federal appliance efficiency rules. (Adobe Stock)
“For too long, the American people paid the price for mandates that restricted consumer choice and drove up costs. President Trump promised to end this nonsense and that is exactly what we are doing. This proposed rule will preserve the American people’s ability to choose home appliances and equipment that actually work — at prices they can afford. It’s called commonsense.”
Officials said previous Obama and Biden administrations interpreted Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) standards as requiring increasingly stringent efficiency standards that made some appliances more expensive or less functional.
Biden-era changes in 2021 and 2024 that loosened the Trump administration’s 2020 rules by making the procedures non-binding and removing several provisions, including a significant energy savings threshold and other procedural requirements.
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright says past mandates drove up consumer costs. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The proposal is open for public comment for 30 days before being made an official rule. It comes as the U.S. and Europe face a major heat wave.
Paris Deputy Mayor Audrey Pulvar recently released a statement blaming the United States for the deadly heat wave over France by saying the issue is climate change – not the lack of air conditioning in Europe.
“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticizing and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room. OMG, this is so rich!” she wrote on Instagram.
BIDEN-HARRIS STILL HATE YOUR GAS STOVE, YOU WON’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH
People cool off in the Trocadero Fountain next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris as temperatures rise during a heatwave affecting a large part of France. (Abdul Saboor/Reuters)
Due to regulations, only 20% of households have air conditioning compared to 88% in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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She added, “As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities ‘90% air-conditioned’ are not unrelated to this. In Paris, we take responsibility.”
Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — As America’s 250th birthday arrives this weekend, President Trump’s mark is clearly visible on Washington.
Visitors to the nation’s capital are being met with cranes hanging over the White House and construction at the site of the demolished East Wing. Fences crisscrossing the National Mall to hem in the Great American State Fair have blocked the famed sightline from the U.S. Capitol to the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.
Some fountains newly sparkle as a result of Trump’s renovations. National Guardsmen patrol the sidewalks. The partisan flavor of the Trump-aligned Freedom 250 organization’s events is on display, and the fireworks show Saturday will feature a rally-style speech from Trump, with fireworks reportedly pushed back to 11 p.m.
President Trump examines the maintenance work Wednesday on the exterior of the White House.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
The memorial’s Reflecting Pool, where fireworks will be set off Saturday, was barricaded from the public earlier than usual after onlookers flocked last week to see the algae and peeling paint that followed Trump’s renovation, and Trump accused vandals of tampering with it.
“You don’t have a sense of ‘land of the free’ here,” said Melissa McFarlane, 61, standing along the fencing on the Mall. She said she was born in Silver Spring, Md., and she grew up watching July 4 fireworks on the Mall with her parents.
She recalled the nation’s 200th anniversary celebrations as “open and inviting” but said this year’s “heavy-duty fencing” and the presence of National Guardsmen made it feel different.
“It’s majorly disorganized, which is weird for our country,” McFarlane added.
A sign outside Lafayette Park near the White House.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
Trump has fixated on making changes to the nation’s capital in his second term, declaring in an early executive order that his administration would make the district “safe and beautiful.” Some of the renovations have been successful; fountains are running anew, including the long-dormant cascading water feature at the city’s popular Meridian Hill Park.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Sunday on “Fox & Friends” that more than 50 parks and circles have been restored and 22 fountains, along with repairs to lights on the National Mall.
“President Trump should be thanked for all he is doing to leave things better than he found them for the good of our great nation,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement. “D.C. residents and visitors are experiencing working fountains, clean parks and safe streets across the district for the first time in decades, all thanks to President Donald J. Trump.”
But Trump’s growing slate of projects has drawn legal challenges from preservationist groups and raised questions about the cost to taxpayers. The $14.7-million repainting of the Reflecting Pool became particularly controversial last month after algae overtook the renovated pool and the new paint appeared to peel off.
On Sunday, the president took a tour of some of his construction sites, walking through Lafayette Park with Burgum before traveling to the East Potomac golf club he plans to renovate, which sits on federal land. Trump walked part of the property and inspected blueprints in view of reporters; he was then driven by the site where he wants to erect a marble arch.
Over the weekend, he posted on Truth Social about his improvements to the city in a post about D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, casting it as a “Safe and Prestigious Community” that is now at risk of being “destroyed” by Lewis George.
“I have worked too hard to make Washington, D.C., the Envy of the World, with almost No Crime, and a Beautification process that has been second to none,” Trump wrote.
Construction crews build scaffolding outside the Kennedy Center on June 13 before removing President Trump’s name from the venue’s exterior.
(Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)
Involvement by presidents in the city’s plan goes back to George Washington, said Matthew J. Bell, an architecture professor at the University of Maryland. That is not unusual, nor is it strange for cities, including Washington, to change over time, he said.
“It’s probably more a matter of timing in terms of inconvenience for people coming for the Fourth,” Bell said of the ongoing construction. “If there had been a more coordinated plan for some of these things … it probably could’ve been managed better.”
At the National Mall, the fencing design for the state fair drew head shakes and confusion from some tourists. Visitors are corralled into a walkway by the Freedom 250-branded fencing on one side and low metal barriers on the other.
It’s normal for fencing to be used to control foot traffic for events on the mall, said Charles A. Birnbaum, chief executive of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, but he perceived the problem as slapdash placement, including of the Ferris wheel, which was put on the mall’s axis.
“Things are being plopped down,” said Birnbaum, whose organization sued the administration over the repainting of the Reflecting Pool. “It speaks to what Trump is doing at the ballroom, what he’s proposed [with] the arch — he’s just plopping these things down in major view sheds that have major historical and cultural significance.”
People walk past the Ferris wheel at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall.
(Jen Golbeck / Associated Press)
The fountains in Lafayette Park are running again near the White House on June 23.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
The state fair itself has drawn relatively few crowds, though some attendees have been enthusiastic.
On Monday, McFarlane and two friends were outside the fencing, leaning against the metal barriers in front of the Department of Agriculture, which faces the National Mall.
“It’s a little too secure,” said one of them, John, 60, who was visiting from Burbank and declined to give his last name.
He gestured over the barrier to a manicured plot with shady benches. “Here’s the People’s Garden,” he said, reading its sign, “and we can’t go in.”
A construction crane works on the White House ballroom on Monday.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
Visitors take photos Tuesday of a model of President Trump’s proposed marble arch at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall.
(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)
Early-morning joggers observer the refilling of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 5.
(John McDonnell / Associated Press)
The anniversary celebrations also come on the heels of the reflecting pool controversy. Last week, after chunks of paint were spotted in the water, Trump blamed vandals for tampering with the pool and said people had been arrested at the site. Two dead ducks were found in a pond about 250 feet away from the pool.
The area last week was surrounded by surveillance cameras and patrolled by National Guardsmen as lifelong resident John Cates strolled the area.
“It’s kind of creepy,” Cates said about the security cameras mounted around the pool. “It is unnecessary that we have to have this pond deemed a high security risk. That is weird.”
The area was fenced off at the end of last week. Fencing normally occurs in preparation for the July 4 fireworks show, but it went up “a couple days early to protect the pool,” Burgum said in the Fox News interview. He said seven people had been arrested in connection with the pool.
Tom Ayers, 34, was disappointed to find the fences already up on Monday. He traveled with his father from Wisconsin for the 250th, but they were finding it difficult to get around the Mall and they were upset to see the East Wing gone.
When they reached Lafayette Park, where the fencing had yet to be removed, they were again disappointed by the obscured view of the White House. Ayers’ father recalled a different scene in 1976, when he visited as a child for the nation’s bicentennial.
“I was kind of hoping for a summer similar to that,” Ayers said, “but overall, it seems nowhere close.”
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.
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