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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Winna Liu. I write the game Connections, one of the puzzles from New York Times games. And I love horror movies. I love my dog. And I love trying to trick you.
I'm Tracy Bennett. I get to pick the wordle word every day, which is not as easy as it sounds. The fun fact about me is that I am descended from a witch who was put on trial in Salem. New York Times games are made by people, like the ones you just heard from. Go to nytimes.com slash games to start playing today.
Do you have a minute? We make a podcast called The Daily. Sure. We're in town looking at all of the renovations and construction work that the president's undertaken. The reflecting pool, Lafayette Park, and the arch that's going to be built behind us. And we're just trying to figure out what people are thinking about it.
I think it's a mess. I'm really disappointed because we're here for my granddaughter's 16th birthday. She wanted to come to D.C., see all the stuff, and I really thought that pool would be finished. I'm very sad that this year our trip, they're renovating the pool because all the other years before, they saw very nice views from the pool.
From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.
What do you think about the reflecting pool?
This is The Daily. In the lead-up to America's 250th birthday this summer, President Trump is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a massive renovation of the nation's capital. I think it's good. I mean, they're fixing it up, making it look pretty. I mean, this is Washington, D.C. Everyone's going to come here.
And depending on where you sit, these projects are either boldly slicing through bureaucratic red tape to bring Washington back to its glory. Love him. I'm 100% behind him. He's making this wonderful D.C. look greatly beautiful again. All right, tell us about the arch. The arch. 100% behind the arch as well.
Or... I think when things are done, why change them and then change them again? It was made that way for a reason, wasn't it?
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Chapter 2: What major renovations is President Trump planning for Washington D.C.?
It's not the Bellagio, but it is a pretty big fountain. There's two fountains. Each of them has sort of two spray rings, as they call them. And they don't work. They haven't worked for a few years. So the job was to just repair those so the water could start flowing again. It's not top secret. It's not particularly hard. It's something that happens in the government all the time.
But what we found was that the contract was given out on a no-bid basis. So the government selected a contractor without going through the legally required process of comparing offers and figuring out who could do the best job for the least money.
Right, which is what most people think of as just best practice, whether you're having a tree taken down in your yard or a deck built on your house, you ask two, three, if you're really ambitious, four companies to tell you what they're gonna charge you.
Right. When it's your money, that seems obvious, right? And the reason these laws exist is because the government is not spending its own money. Spending ours.
Yeah, they have to make sure that the government follows these procedures so that they're getting the same good deal for us, the taxpayers, that we would try to get for ourselves if it was our air conditioner that broke or our plumbing or our fountain or whatever. Right.
And what's the administration's rationale for giving this contract out with zero bidding process?
Well, they've cited an exemption that does exist in the law for urgent situations. These are times when there's no time to seek other bids because there's some sort of emergency going on, often in natural disasters or wartime. They've cited that as a reason not to seek other bids and just go with this bid here.
And the urgency in this case is not a war, obviously, or a natural disaster, but just that the president wants this done by July 4th.
For the 250th.
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Chapter 3: How is the Lafayette Park renovation being handled?
Clark told us they did everything above board. There's nothing sort of wrong about the way they handled this project. But certainly they are getting paid a lot more than the government originally thought they should get paid for this project. And the details of those payments, if we hadn't reported them, would be totally secret.
You can kind of see the logic if you're the president. Clark's already working on my ballroom, on the White House property. I have something else for them to do across the street. Just take care of that.
You're right. There is logic, and that was one of the things they cited, was that Clark was already staging its equipment nearby, and so it would be easier for them. There's also a concern about security clearance.
Clark has security clearance to work inside the White House grounds, and sometimes Lafayette Park is closed off for diplomatic events and effectively becomes part of the White House security perimeter.
Right.
And it's important to know that like the White House does have sort of special rules for building within the White House grounds. But we are here in the real world, right outside the White House fence where all the normal laws are supposed to apply. So what we're seeing is that the approach President Trump has taken to the ballroom, which is like, let's keep everything secret.
You know, let's pick people that the president handpicks is now sort of like bleeding outside the White House grounds into the real world. And this is the first example of it.
In other words, what the president's doing with the ballroom, that's in its own category. It's the White House. It's the president. A lot of it is, we're told, private funds. But once we get into Lafayette Park, we're in a whole other world.
Tax dollars, public space, and a legal process that's supposed to apply that's being disregarded and treated as if this is all just an extension of the White House. That's right. So with all that backstory, how's the work actually going? Is it going fast? Is it going to be ready?
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