Trump’s Massive Washington Arch Drawing Massive Criticism, Including From Expert Who Pushed for It

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

President Donald Trump’s proposed “triumphal arch” is receiving backlash, including from an early proponent who encouraged the president to build it.

“Washington is the only major Western capital without a monumental arch,” Catesby Leigh, an architecture critic, wrote in a 2025 article for The American Mind.

The proponent has since turned into a critic as the president’s plans for this arch have more than doubled in size. The architect currently designing the monument helped do research for papers for Leigh that originally encouraged the project.

“I was proposing a celebratory project,” Leigh said, according to a New York Times report. “An arch of not titanic dimensions; an arch that could be built by July 4, 2026. And if the arch were considered to be of enduring value in its design, then it could be rebuilt in permanent form.”

The original plan was reportedly for a 60-foot arch, but the president quickly grew that to 250 feet. The plan was originally upscaled to 76 feet, in commemoration of 1776, but the plan then grew to 250 feet, which the president says is part of the celebration of America’s 250th birthday this year.

The Commission of Fine Arts is set to consider the project on Thursday. Trump has said it will be paid for by private and possibly public funds.

“The one that people know mostly is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, and we’re going to top it by, I think, a lot,” Trump said in December. “The only thing they have is history.”

The Paris arch is meant to commemorate Armistice Day, the end of World War I.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has reportedly set aside $15 million for Trump’s potential arch. The project would break ground this summer and be done before the president leaves office.

Vietnam War veterans are currently suing to stop the project, which would stand near Arlington Cemetery. They argue the arch would obstruct the view from Arlington to the Lincoln Memorial.

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