WAMU15%
How Trump’s rush to build an arch is rewriting construction rules in historic places 41%
By Alison Brody8%
7/24/2026, 5:18:15 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Recency Bias, and Hasty Generalization, with Ambiguity (Equivocation) as the most egregious example at 15.1% saturation with 89 hits. Analysis detected 631 faulty-reasoning hits from 589 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 45.7% and a BS Rank of 41% (12,921 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 59.00% of the article peer group.
Building a new monument in Washington, D.C. is usually a long and painstaking process.
It involves layers of review by federal commissions and often requires congressional approval.
President Trump is trying to speed that up for the construction of a 250-foot triumphal arch at Memorial Circle.
But the changes his administration is proposing could reach far beyond this single project.
The Atlantic’s Janay Kingsberry has been following this story and joined WAMU’s Kellen Quigley to talk about it.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Can you explain how the monument building process is supposed to work and why it was set up that way?
There is a federal law that governs all monuments built in Washington, D.C., known as the Commemorative Works Act.
A new project first requires authorization from Congress and then there are several federal review panels that look at the proposal and make suggestions and recommendations about how it can proceed without causing any adverse effects to surrounding landscape, and to the symbolic and historic sight line of D.C..
So, what is the Trump administration proposing to speed up that process?
The Trump administration has been compressing this process really unusually, starting first by not getting congressional authorization.
They’re claiming that they don’t need it.
They’re citing a 1925 law that says two columns could be built on Memorial Circle as a way to suggest that Congress has already previously approved a similar structure, even though these are two different ideas and of different heights.
And then what has been most striking that we’ve seen play out in recent days is there’s the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that has proposed revisions to a mechanism called Section 106 that guides how really all projects on federal land are constructed.
What do preservationists say would be lost if these rules are weakened?
Ultimately these proposed revisions would mean that federal agencies have more discretion over how monuments and memorials are built and that public input is not really necessary.
Neither is consultation from preservation groups, native tribes, and that regardless of any input, the agency can still proceed with this process.
That could have sweeping effects on historic places across the country.
So, this is actually bigger than the Arch, bigger than Garden of Heroes or the Reflecting Pool.
This is a law that tries to mitigate and avoid any harm to historic properties.
Can you lay out the argument that supporters of these changes are making?
Many of the supporters are saying that this is necessary because Section 106 is a very tedious process and it has slowed down projects.
It has caused delays.
It has led to an excess of money spent.
This is meant to help streamline projects and get them moving along quickly.
How likely is it that these changes actually take effect?
The council has a deadline to cast their vote on these proposed changes by Friday at 5 p.m..
It does seem likely to pass because this is a council that President Trump has quietly overhauled in the past year.
There are 24 seats on the council and about 20 of them belong to Trump appointees or Trump cabinet members.
Janay Kingsberry is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Her latest piece is titled “Inside Trump’s Rush Job to Build His Arch.”
The post How Trump’s rush to build an arch is rewriting construction rules in historic places appeared first on WAMU .
Speakers
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.