WASHINGTON (AP) — America is celebrating its 250th year. And what better way to mark that anniversary than with an American summer staple — a trip to Washington, D.C.?
But visitors to the nation’s capital will find that it is undergoing tremendous change, courtesy of President Donald Trump’s takeover makeover.
Since returning to office 17 months ago, Trump has demonstrated a continuing fixation with the city. The Republican president has slapped his
image and name on buildings, torn down storied structures, altered others, started massive construction projects and deployed armed military personnel.
The traditional tourist sights remain. But with slight detours, an open mind and a critical eye, the ambitious walker can see all the ways the president has pushed to remake the capital.
On the eve of the United States' birthday, take a trip with The Associated Press across a changing Washington.
We start our tour at Union Station and Metro Center, the city’s main transit hubs. Notice the Greco-Roman architecture of the former, the Brutalist design of the latter. Now see the ongoing, indefinite deployment of armed National Guard troops there and in many other parts of the city.
National Guard members from Washington, D.C., and several states have been in the city since August 2025, deployed under an emergency order issued by Trump in what he called a bid to fight crime. Trump has portrayed the deployment as a lifeline for the city. They will be here for most, if not all, of 2026 and are expected to number 5,000 this summer.
It's not the first time the military has deployed to the capital. Troops were in D.C. throughout the Civil War, to quell riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 assassination and, famously, hours into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
But in Trump's Washington, Guardsmen at street corners and metro stations have become an increasingly normal part of the city’s scenery.
And no one knows when they will leave.
Exit Union Station, take in the view of the U.S. Capitol building and turn right down Pennsylvania Avenue. There sits a building now synonymous with the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration's effort to shrink the federal government.
The U.S. Agency for International Development was the first major federal agency targeted by then-DOGE leader Elon Musk in the remake of the federal government, when cost-cutting measures prompted the terminations of tens of thousands of workers. USAID spent billions on humanitarian aid worldwide and was credited with saving millions of lives over time.
By eliminating 90% of foreign aid contracts, the Trump administration effectively cut some $60 billion in funding.
After workers cleared their desks last February, the USAID offices on Pennsylvania Avenue were repurposed for other government uses.
The shuttering of the agency also contributed to a massive increase in unemployment in the region where about one-fifth of the workforce lives.
Many workers still ask: When their lives were upended, what was saved?
Walking south along any of the numbered streets leads to Constitution Avenue and the National Mall. Banners bearing Trump's image have adorned the facades of several government buildings over the past 17 months — an uncommon practice for a sitting American president and a highly literal sign of his imprint upon the city.
At the U.S. Department of the Interior, his image has equal billing with George Washington on similar banners proclaiming “America's First” and “America First.”
A mile away, Trump's face glowers from the storied Justice Department building, a physical display of the Republican president’s efforts to exert power over the law enforcement agency that once investigated him. It's also a striking symbol of the erosion of the department’s tradition of independence from White House control, as the president pushes to prosecute his political adversaries.
Westward toward the Lincoln Memorial sits the recently repainted Reflecting Pool.
The site has always been a must-see on any tourist's checklist. But the Reflecting Pool, the scene of historic marches and protests, today also symbolizes Trump's drive to change Washington.
Trump called the area “filthy” and had workers paint it in a color he has dubbed “American flag blue.” A Washington-based nonprofit that tried to block the move said it undermined the somber tone of the area, which sits near the memorials to Lincoln and to the Vietnam and Korean wars.
Since the makeover, the pool has been fraught with problems, from runaway algae growth to dead ducks and a torn lining. Authorities say vandals have been responsible for some of the problems and arrests have been made.
A walk over the Memorial Bridge across the Potomac River leads directly to the proposed future site of Trump's 20-story, gold-adorned triumphal arch. Although embroiled in a court battle, like a number of his projects, the arch has been approved by a key federal agency and survey work has begun at the site.
In a city meticulously planned and rich with the symbolism that defines the nation, new construction can unsettle the carefully crafted balance.
The arch, when built, will break up the intentionally designed symbolic sightline between Arlington House, once the home of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and the Lincoln Memorial, which symbolized the reunification of a divided nation following the Civil War.
Visible from the site is the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts — known for much of this year as the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center.
Congress named the performing arts venue as a living memorial to Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. A law explicitly prohibits its board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
A court decision eventually stripped the center of Trump's name, but a tarp remains there, obscuring the change.
Trump also added his name to the U.S. Institute of Peace, part of a broader series of tributes that has been largely unprecedented for a sitting, living president.
No tour would be complete without 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — the White House. There, gazers can look at the construction site formerly known as the East Wing. It's now the president's ballroom-in-waiting as the courts and Congress battle over whether to build it.
The White House has said the $400 million cost would be paid by private donors, but public money — around $1 billion for the entire White House complex, including the ballroom — would be used for security measures. The proposed building has also expanded to a size larger than the rest of the White House. Trump argues the ballroom is necessary for security reasons, and amplified that assertion after the attack on the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in April.
Not viewable on the tour: the area formerly known as the Rose Garden. Planted by then-first Lady Jackie Kennedy, it has been paved over into a patio.
Directly north, across Pennsylvania Avenue, is the area of town formerly known as Black Lives Matter Plaza. During Trump's first term, a more defiant Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered the painting and naming of the area as a remembrance of the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police.
BLM Plaza became a magnet point for years of political activism. Hundreds of protests started, ended or rallied there.
The plaza came down in March 2025 at Bowser’s direction, spurred by threats from Congress to hold the city’s funding. The decision served as an acknowledgment of a major shift in tone under Trump.
That's the tour, folks. Please enjoy your stay.
