The Capital Belongs to Every American: What Critics of Trump's D.C. Plans Leave Out

The New York Times took aim this week at President Trump's plans for the nation's capital, arguing in a Nov. 10 design review that many of the projects would push local residents aside. If the plans come to pass, the paper warned, Washingtonians would lose access to sports fields, fishing spots and other fixtures of everyday city life.

That concern deserves a fair hearing. Families who fish off Hains Point or play a round at East Potomac on a Saturday morning are real people with real routines, and no one should wave away their attachment to those places. But the Times frames the question as if the capital were simply one more city whose nearest neighbors own its parks. The Constitution says something different, and so does the record of the past year.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 gives Congress the power to "exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever" over the seat of government. The Framers chose that language on purpose. James Madison argued that the national government needed complete authority over its own home so it would never depend on the goodwill of a single state for its safety or its dignity. The District was designed from the start as the shared ground of the whole country, not the private preserve of the people who happen to live closest to the monuments.

Congress gave the city a measure of self-government in the 1973 Home Rule Act, and that was a reasonable choice. But Congress kept the final word, including the power to review and override city laws. And the parkland at the heart of the current fight was never city land at all. East Potomac Park and its golf links are federal property overseen by the Interior Department and the National Park Service, built on ground the federal government itself reclaimed from the Potomac more than a century ago. When Interior decides how to care for that land, it is not seizing anything from the District. It is doing the job the Constitution assigns.

The Times piece worries about lost amenities. The amenity that matters most to any family is coming home safe. In August 2025, President Trump took temporary command of the Metropolitan Police Department under the Home Rule Act and sent National Guard troops and federal agents into the city. The Washington Post reported in January that the District's annual homicide toll declined for a second straight year in 2025. WJLA later reported that homicides had dropped 40 percent and that detectives were solving more cases than they had in years.

Critics point out, fairly, that crime had begun falling before the federal surge. That is true, and it does not change the larger point. A capital where visitors, workers and residents can walk the Mall after dark is a capital that serves locals and tourists alike. A fishing spot is worth little if parents are afraid to take their children there.

Now consider the golf course the critics cite most often. The Justice Department has said the administration's plans for East Potomac are in the works, and the course is set to close on Nov. 15 to make way for them. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has unveiled the design for renovating the course. That is a renovation of a tired public course, not a padlock on the gate.

Washington has been here before. The capital's grandest public spaces, from the reflecting pools to the long green sweep of the Mall, exist because national leaders were willing to plan boldly for a city that belongs to the country. Many of those projects displaced something that came before, and many drew loud criticism at the time. Generations of Americans now treat them as their inheritance.

The fair test is not whether a project inconveniences anyone. Every public work does. The test is whether it serves the American people, who pay for these places and travel from every state to see them. A restored public course, a safer waterfront and new monuments to those who served all pass that test.

The fight will continue in the courts, in Congress and in the pages of the national press. The Democrats who take control of the House in January have promised close oversight of the administration. The administration, for its part, has signaled it intends to keep building.

Washingtonians deserve a voice in that debate, and their concerns about access should help shape the details. Fishing piers, bike paths and ball fields can and should have a place in the plans. But the starting point has to be the one the Framers wrote down: the capital is the nation's front porch, held in trust for some 340 million Americans. Caring for it boldly is not pushing anyone aside. It is keeping faith with everyone who calls it theirs.