In short
How President Trump is “remaking” Washington, D.C. through militarized crime policy, highly visible branding, and large-scale construction—framed as “Trumpification” and criticized for bypassing consultation.
Guests (backgrounds)
Paul Hunter, Willie Lowry, and Katie Simpson—CBC Washington correspondents/strategists based in Washington, with personal experience living in D.C. (including Canadian perspectives).
Key claims
Trump uses National Guard deployments to claim credit for safety improvements that were already trending better; his approach is “sledgehammer” and “just get it done,” often without consultation; his branding (Trump banners, renamed facilities) and big projects aim to create a lasting personal legacy.
Notable examples
National Guard troops on streets; Trump banners at the Justice Department; demolition of the White House East Wing for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom (~$200M); “Arc” plans—an enormous 250-foot triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial (Commission of Fine Arts approval); discussion of Venezuela/Cuba motives and “flood the zone” news cycles.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOFirst Impressions of D.C.
0:45 to 3:12
Hosts share their initial thoughts and experiences upon arriving in Washington, D.C.
“And it's not even the worst part of winter in Ottawa in December.”
Trump's Impact on D.C.
3:12 to 7:14
Discussion on how Donald Trump's presence has changed the landscape and culture of Washington, D.C.
“Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, which had been known in town and around the world as the Kennedy Center.”
Normalization of Military Presence
7:14 to 10:49
Exploring the normalization of the National Guard's presence in D.C. and its implications.
“But I don't know what this says about me, what this says about kind of society in general.”
Controversy over Architectural Projects
10:49 to 14:00
Debate over Trump's proposed architectural project and its implications for D.C.
“Yeah, but I mean, I think you raise a really important point.”
The Controversy of the ARCH
14:00 to 16:46
Explore the mixed reactions to the proposed ARCH monument in D.C.
“And it just landed effectively on the front pages and saying this is what it's going to be.”
Trump's Approach to Architectural Changes
16:46 to 20:29
Discuss Trump's decisive and often polarizing approach to D.C. architecture.
“But it again, it speaks to those key points.”
Trump's Legacy in Real Estate
20:29 to 22:46
Analyze how Trump's real estate background influences his presidential decisions.
“And then by the time the protests, what are you going to protest?”
The Implications of Trump's Physical Changes to D.C.
22:46 to 24:46
Understand the long-term effects of Trump's projects on the city's landscape.
“And he wants that legacy and he wants it about him.”
Venezuela and Cuba: Trump's Foreign Policy Tactics
24:46 to 28:00
Examine Trump's strategies in Venezuela and Cuba and their broader implications.
“And we're not going to dive into tariffs, but show me a Democratic president in the future who will undo, who will send those auto jobs back to Canada.”
Political Insights and Current Events
28:00 to 28:28
Explore the dynamics of political events and their implications.
“There's one little nub of something that is legitimate there.”
Show all 11 chapters
Audience Engagement and Future Discussions
28:28 to 28:58
Learn how to connect and engage with the podcast community.
“Thanks to Colleen for sending us that question.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Paul Hunter:The Powering Politics podcast is available six times a week, but you might not be. If you want to catch up on what happened this week in politics, join me, Laura D 'Angelo, and some of Canada's most tuned-in political strategists to break down the week that was. Short on time, the Weekly Wrap has you covered with a new episode every Saturday.
0:21Willy Lowry:This is a CBC Podcast. Hey Katie, Willy. So we're going to talk about D.C. today. Let me ask you both. Katie, when you first came to D.C., what stood out to you about D.C. as a city?
0:36Paul Hunter:Well, I was coming from Ottawa. So I want you guys to picture this. I moved from Ottawa in December to Washington, D.C. in January. But I left in Ottawa winter. And it's not even the worst part of winter in Ottawa in December. and moved down here in January and then experienced a very delightful, warm Washington winter.
1:02Willy Lowry:I think it's the way you say Ottawa winter.
1:04Paul Hunter:Oh, it just, it brings me back. I can't do it. But really, what really stood out to me is, you know, what an incredible city it is because A, partly the weather is fantastic and B, it's so walkable. You're outside. There's so much to do. That really is what stood out to me.
1:20Katie Simpson:Let's have that conversation in August.
1:22Paul Hunter:Exactly.
1:23Katie Simpson:When we're sweating profusely. Willie, what stood out to you about the city? Gunshots and sirens. We moved during a weird time. It was mid-COVID, mid-pandemic. The city kind of felt eerily empty, but we had also, coming from the UAE, which is like a very docile, safe place, and we were taken aback by how frequently we heard gunshots, or as we like to say in our family, fireworks, and sirens. We took my daughter, who at the time was maybe 16 months, on a little vacation to West Virginia about a year after moving. And just out of nowhere, she started going. She was playing by herself and she started going.
2:07Katie Simpson:And that's when we realized that we were raising a little city kid. Not in Kansas anymore.
2:11Paul Hunter:No. Do you know that I can now tell the difference between gunshots and fireworks, by the way, because I hear them so frequently?
2:16Willy Lowry:Yeah. No, same.
2:17Paul Hunter:There's a pattern to it. There's a pattern to a firework and there isn't to a gunshot.
2:20Willy Lowry:I will say coming from Ottawa, as I did, or even broadly coming from Canada to D.C., I hear you on that. But for me, really, I think my takeaway when I first came here was how in terms of American history and such, that it was a celebratory city. And I'll say in a nonpartisan way, it was just the museums and the monuments. It's just such a walkable, as I say, celebratory city when I first got here. Dare I say Pierre L 'Enfant knew what he was doing. Very good name dropping there, name check, who designed the layout of Washington, D.C. A lot has changed in D.C. over the years since his time and recently.
3:00Willy Lowry:Nowadays, you see Donald Trump's face on big banners on the Justice Department and other government buildings.
3:06Paul Hunter:And his name has been added to now what is called the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, which had been known in town and around the world as the Kennedy Center.
3:20Katie Simpson:Still is kind of, though. But let's not forget about the East Wing of the White House. Oh, wait, that doesn't exist anymore.
3:27Willy Lowry:And there are more plans in the work. So this week, we're going to take a slight break from Iran. And we're going to look out the window, the U.S. Capitol in which we live, and we'll be asking what's going on out there? How and why is Donald Trump remaking Washington, D.C.? I'm Paul Hunter. I'm Willie Lowry.
3:47Paul Hunter:And I'm Katie Simpson. We are CBC's Washington Correspondents, two blocks from the White House.
4:00Katie Simpson:Dozens of National Guard troops will be on the streets of the nation's capital, part of President Trump's attempt to reel in crime in Washington, D.C., which he claims is spiraling out of control. This morning, demolition day at the White House. Crews tearing down walls as construction for President Trump's 90 ,000-square-foot ballroom ramps up.
4:19Paul Hunter:It's expected to cost around$200 million. It's almost impossible to miss the new banner bearing President Trump's face that just went up here at the Justice Department. OK, Katie, let's pick up on this.
4:30Willy Lowry:What's it like to walk around Washington now compared to compared to, say, a year ago?
4:36Paul Hunter:There are two things that really stand out to me. And one, the first one, is that I frequently see National Guard troops. They usually walk in a cluster, maybe five or six of them together at a time. I'm at the point where it's completely normalized, which I don't know what that says about, you know, the moment we're living in that, you know, we are living in the U.S. Capitol and we are seeing troops on the streets and it doesn't even faze me anymore. They often say hello. Never see them doing much of anything other than sort of walking around.
5:08Willy Lowry:And then I kind of feel for them in a way, given the controversy. They don't want to be here.
5:12Paul Hunter:They also make me feel old.
5:13Katie Simpson:They'll say like they say, hi, sir.
5:16Paul Hunter:Yeah, they're very polite. They're very polite. The other thing that you notice is Trump's face is everywhere. There are big banners up on some of the government buildings, particularly in and around the Washington Mall area, which is where some federal office buildings are, where some of the museums are, those kinds of places. There are these big banners with some of Donald Trump's political slogans like make America safe again, those kinds of things, and his image on these buildings. And so you see a physical change to what it looks like in the city. And then, of course, there is a vibe change, a bit of a vibe change, because the National Guard's here.
5:54Willy Lowry:But he also gets, I mean, Trump gets a lot of flack for that stuff, right? Which is why we're talking about this today. But, you know, I took a walk by the White House on the way in this morning to sort of take a look at the coming ballroom, and we're going to talk about that. But I also saw Lafayette Park across from the White House fenced off, and they're beautifying it. And, you know, you walk by Logan Circle, as we often do, and they're beautifying it. It is this country's 250th anniversary. And that is back to my first observation about D.C. when I moved here, the celebratory aspect of this place.
6:28Willy Lowry:This is a celebratory year. Trump gets a lot of flack for a lot of this stuff we're going to be talking about today. But who can deny a president and administration that wants to beautify the place, which he's doing in different places at the same time. It's interesting.
6:42Katie Simpson:I would just point out he's beautifying parts of the city. He's not getting to the neighborhoods that I live in.
6:47Willy Lowry:That's a very good point.
6:49Paul Hunter:Yeah. And Willie, let's take it back. So this is what's happening right now. But let's take it back, you know, eight months or so when Donald Trump first declared that there was a national emergency and brought in hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington. How did that? I know where we are. We talked about where we're feeling now, but how did that feel when that first started?
7:06Katie Simpson:It was shocking. All of a sudden you had, as you mentioned, these groups of, you know, four to six soldiers clad in military fatigues, right, in their kind of green camo, patrolling the streets. And it was weird. But I don't know what this says about me, what this says about kind of society in general. But I would say, as you kind of suggested, they're completely normal to me now. It doesn't weird me out anymore. I think it should because of what it kind of says about the broader time that we're living in. But again, it all started out of this desire from the president to make Washington safe again.
7:50Katie Simpson:And he's used it almost as a guinea pig for the rest of the country as this example that by sending in the National Guard, he's made Washington the safest city in the country. crime statistics would suggest that it's actually been getting progressively safer, less dangerous over, I think, a several decade long kind of arc.
8:14Willy Lowry:Yeah. Paul Hunter statistics can tell you I've lived here long enough. I mean, the thing about the National Guard in D.C. and by the way, also still in, I think, Memphis and New Orleans, in any great numbers. The experience that we had when we moved here and we felt an awareness of the potential for crime coming. And I always wondered, is it just me, the little old Canadian coming here, and I'm not used to a country where guns are commonplace and things like that, and you hear about crime rates in various cities, and we can talk about Baltimore some other time in other places, right? D.C., when I came here, was kind of messed up.
8:51Willy Lowry:It was the tail end of the bad 80s and 90s, and then it started to change very quickly. I call it the Times Square-ification of downtown D.C. in the same way Times Square in New York changed. But when Trump came out with this, I'm going to make Washington safe again, me, the person, thought, what are you talking about? Like, it's not that bad. And so when he brings the National Guard in and then says, well, look, now it's safe. I'm thinking, well, no, it's no different than it was before because there wasn't really a terrible problem the way he portrayed it. I'm not saying it couldn't have been safer.
9:28Willy Lowry:That's true with every city, including Toronto, for example, right? That's, I think, what irks a lot of people is that he creates a kind of phony scenario and then he resolves it and takes the credit for it.
9:39Katie Simpson:Yeah, taking credit for something that had, for the most part, already been solved or at least worked on.
9:45Paul Hunter:Yeah, and as we have these sort of experiences where we're sort of having this normalized experience, like you see the National Guard and you're like, oh, there they are, and you don't really think much of it. You know, we are three white people living this experience, and it may be a very different consideration, likely is a very different consideration for people of color, for people who are immigrants in America who are concerned, you know, are these federal agents going to be involved in ICE operations, those kinds of things. Because when the federal, I remember when the National Guard was coming in, it was in and around the same time that DC was going through the ICE immigration crackdown, which is sort of slowed down and calmed down.
10:21Paul Hunter:It's not sort of like big operations. You don't, you know, see videos of people in the streets being detained the way it had been for like a short period of time last summer, which in other parts of the country it continues on and it continues on with, you know, sort of more, it's continuing on quietly. We're not seeing it like we saw in Minneapolis. We're not seeing it like we saw in Los Angeles in some parts. And so it's this weird thing where, you know, we continue to go about our lives. We see it and it just like, well, there they are. Just keep going on your walk.
10:52Katie Simpson:Yeah, but I mean, I think you raise a really important point. There were and are ICE operations throughout the city. And I think the presence of kind of the National Guard and kind of a more, I guess, militaristic aspect of law enforcement would probably be terrifying for a lot, a lot of people.
Read the full transcript
11:11Willy Lowry:I think in short, it's so much of the flack aimed at Trump is because of the way that he does things. And each of the various aspects of things we've talked about, there's probably an argument for some sort of action. But he comes in with a sledgehammer and without consultation on a lot of the things that we're going to talk about here. And as much as anything else, you can agree or disagree with stuff that he does. But it's as often as not, I argue that it's it's the way that he does it. So to bring it to something that's that's in the headlines here right now, I mean, a lot has changed over recent time and not so recent time.
11:49Willy Lowry:But probably the biggest thing right now is the triumphal arc. Last week, the Commission of Fine Arts gave its initial approval, Willie, for Trump's plans for this project. How would you describe it? Big.
12:03Katie Simpson:And Trumpy. I mean, how else could you describe it? It's going to be 250 feet, which essentially dwarfs every other arch in the world almost. To give a kind of reference, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is 164 feet. It's also going to be, at least according to the renderings, it seemed to be a white facade with, of course, gold writing across the top. But yeah, I have to say I don't hate the location that it's being proposed across from the Lincoln Memorial just in front of – Some do. Some do for sure. Across from the Arlington National Cemetery. I think there is a symmetry there that could be interesting.
12:45Katie Simpson:But what has a lot of people up in arms is the size of it all, which is, again, Trump's MO. He doesn't do things small. He always has to be bigger, kind of better than everyone else.
12:59Willy Lowry:A typical prairie grain elevator would fit underneath it easily to give you a sense of scale. Isn't that nuts?
13:07Katie Simpson:That comes from a man who's spent some time in the prairies. Who's lived in Saskatchewan.
13:10Paul Hunter:But this is meant to be, well, we can get into what it's meant to be. But on the surface, it is meant to be a celebration of America's 250th birthday, 250th anniversary. So why not go 250 feet? Why not do the big, bold sort of celebratory, if we're going to do it, let's do it American size. Let's do it American style.
13:34Katie Simpson:Yeah, because I would argue perspective and scale is really important in architecture.
13:39Willy Lowry:Some of those who oppose it are Vietnam War vets who say it destroys the view, I guess, or when you stand at the Lincoln and look at Arlington Cemetery and they underline that Trump did not go and fight in Vietnam, Bones Burrs. And that part and parcel of their complaint, and they're challenging this, is the broader question of consultation. And it just landed effectively on the front pages and saying this is what it's going to be. It's going to be massive. It's going to be right there. And the people who approved it, what is it, the Commission of Fine Arts, I think, staffed, goes to perception by Trump loyalists.
14:20Katie Simpson:Let's take a listen to how White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt talked about the ARCH. I really want to say ARCH. ARCH, I know. It's hard. I have to spell it without the H. Yeah, in a press briefing last week.
14:31Willy Lowry:Great nations build beautiful structures that cultivate national pride and love of country.
14:36Katie Simpson:And this triumphal arc should be a project that all Americans of all political persuasions can support because it's a monument for every American to celebrate 250 years of our nation's proud history. And again, the plans for this. Katie, she really does make it seem like something everyone can get behind. So why is it so controversial? And do you think that this criticism is fair?
14:58Paul Hunter:I think that everything President Donald Trump does, you have to put it through what I like to describe as the polarization lens. And because it's Trump, you're going to have, no matter what it is, you're going to have a certain part of the population that either loves it because they love Donald Trump. And that is the kind of support he does cultivate in some parts of the population. And then some people are going to automatically hate it. Now, in Washington, D.C., there is very specific criticism. Paul mentioned it there. The Vietnam veterans are mad. People who live there say it's going to obstruct the skyline or going to radically change the skyline, that it's too big.
15:39Paul Hunter:And that, you know, there are concerns that where it's going to sit, people can't really access it. And it's sort of going to be in a busy area where there's vehicle traffic rather than pedestrian traffic, all of that kind of stuff. So there are criticisms and there is that debate there. But it also sort of highlights something that, Paul, you've said in a previous podcast. We're having a conversation about Artemis and concerns about the lack of consultation. What does Donald Trump want to do? He wants to go fast and he wants to get it done. Why did the Artemis sort of mission change? Because he said, just get it done.
16:12Paul Hunter:And what is what is this sort of have in common with that? He's going to do it. Just get it done. You want to get rid of the East Wing ballroom? Just get it done. You know, ask for forgiveness later or don't ask for forgiveness. Don't care if you get forgiveness. Yeah, just do it. Just get it done. He wants to do it and he's going to do it. And that is something that Trump's critics have argued is dangerous in certain situations because he is just plowing ahead. There is nothing to stop him. And while, you know, this is about architecture, this is about the view of the city, the stakes are not as high as other very significant decisions a president would make.
16:47Paul Hunter:But it again, it speaks to those key points. Donald Trump is going to do what he wants. He's going to push ahead. There's no sort of check and balance on the power. And it's sort of bigger and more symbolic of the way the Trump presidency has gone.
17:01Willy Lowry:Inherent in what I totally agree. In other words, if there is a broad swath of this country who, if Trump does it, it's bad, is their perception. TDS, right? Yes, exactly. Let your Uncle Paul tell you a story.
17:21Paul Hunter:You wear a sweatshirt one day, Paul, and it's all...
17:25Willy Lowry:I'm going to start calling him uncle. It's a story of a president who on inauguration day, you know, makes his way from Capitol Hill to the White House. Doesn't like what he sees, right? Calls it a disgrace. Turns to his nominee for labor secretary and says, fix it. Thoughts? JFK. But we don't hear people complaining about his intentions, do we? It sounded like the language Trump would use, didn't it? It's a disgrace. But he kind of, he let us down that. I did leave you. It was a sucker punch. I knew. Right? But to me, that underlines your point. If Trump, there are people in this country, rightly, they would argue, who if he does it, and that's the problem with assessing what Trump is doing because he is so polarizing.
18:16Paul Hunter:Yeah.
18:26Katie Simpson:What's the last book you read that you absolutely loved? If you're anything like me, you could probably talk about it for hours. You might be wondering what went into the story or why the author made the choices they did. And on my podcast bookends, I can help you find those answers. Every week, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind your favorite books, like how Louise Penny got through five years of writer's block, or how RF Kuang feels about Taylor Swift.
18:56Paul Hunter:Check out Bookends with Mateo Roach wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about what's also happening with the White House ballroom. I get a lot of questions about this from Canadians about, you know, how this could even happen. But, Paul, you know, there's a lot of anger when the East Wing of the White House was demolished. This happened back in October, happened very quickly. For the people who have not been following it, you know, what is Trump's vision for the ballroom?
19:21Willy Lowry:What were the words you used for the arc?
19:24Paul Hunter:Big, Trumpy, golden, you know. By the way, I was wearing a white blazer the other day on the air with golden buttons and they're like calling me. You got some gold on you. I know, but they're like, what are you, the Oval Office? I was like, please use that. Please call me that behind my back. I'm like, oh.
19:40Willy Lowry:I mean, in a way, the ballroom underlines everything we've been talking about. He just went and did it, number one. It's big, like the Ark, and there is opposition to it. Right now, at last count on the Ark, it's about 1 ,000 letters of complaint. There's 35 ,000 letters of complaint about the ballroom. And there has been a back and forth at different levels of courts. I think the latest is it was – I think last week it was stopped, but you can build underground for national security. purposes and we'll deal with the above ground later. And then that was countered. And now they can go back to above ground.
20:15Willy Lowry:I suspect this will all end up in the Supreme Court at some point, partly because Trump is just going ahead and doing it.
20:19Katie Simpson:It was pretty impressive.
20:20Willy Lowry:He got those bulldozers in so quickly. I remember hearing the rat-tat-tat as we would walk into work because we're just two blocks from the White House, right? And then by the time the protests, what are you going to protest? Yeah, it's done. It's a done deal. And that gets back to the point you were making, Katie, that he just goes and does it, sometimes to the benefit that everybody can agree upon, Artemis or some such. And sometimes like, what are you doing? And no consultation. That's the thing. And it is, you know, people say, well, how big is it going to be? It's like big. The White House would fit inside the ballroom.
20:52Willy Lowry:It is bigger than a football field. It is aesthetically, goes the argument, it doesn't fit. Presidents are allowed to do these things, different presidents over the course of different times, but be it additions to the White House or monuments, which some argue the arc to Trump actually is, are done years later and they're done by other people. Again, with the distaste about things Trump does, he's going and doing it for himself, goes the thinking, while he's president.
21:19Paul Hunter:Can you imagine for a Canadian audience, can you imagine if someone went over to 24 Sussex and just knocks something down? It sits there and no one does anything. It might knock itself down.
21:29Katie Simpson:Well, yeah, exactly.
21:29Paul Hunter:Can you imagine for a Canadian audience, if a prime minister, doesn't matter which party, came in and did anything like that, you can't even get anyone on board to like actually agree to do renovations. You can't even propose to do it. Yeah. Yeah. It's because it's politically toxic. It is.
21:44Willy Lowry:I'm just going to say that one of my proudest moments as a reporter in Ottawa was getting a real estate agent that I knew to call it on the air, a fixer-upper. And he wasn't kidding. You know, I want to talk a little bit about Donald Trump's life before politics, Katie. And I wonder if that might be factoring into his approach in terms of all these things we're talking about, the physical buildings in and around Washington.
22:10Paul Hunter:It sort of speaks to who he is at the core and, you know, what he had done in New York City with the buildings and his real estate empire. You know, Donald Trump was a real estate developer buying these massive buildings, slapping his name on it, branding, all those kinds of things. But at the core, what is it about? And it's Trump being about himself. It's his name. It's his legacy. Physical legacy. Me, me, me. And these are things that will long outlast however he is here on this planet for. And he wants that legacy and he wants it about him. It is his style, whose name is on all of these buildings, whether it's a Trump Hotel in whatever city it is around the world.
22:59Paul Hunter:It's Trump. It's him.
23:01Willy Lowry:Ironically, Trump Hotel is no longer Trump Hotel in D.C.
23:04Paul Hunter:Oh, yeah. He sold it off.
23:06Willy Lowry:Willie, you were nodding your head vigorously through all that.
23:08Katie Simpson:How many buildings can he build and feel the need to slap his name across that? And not in small font. Well, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck?
23:20Paul Hunter:Oh, you blew that one, Caitlin.
23:22Willy Lowry:But politically, right, it seems, I think they're, disagree with me if you will, but it's sort of like saying, well, you can vote me out, kind of. I mean, he's in his second term. But you can't undo this, right? You can't. Are you really going to demolish the arc to Trump, right? Are you really going to undo these physical things? And so it's almost like he's putting his brand on the city because he knows that that will outlast him.
23:53Paul Hunter:There are some things I think will change once he is out of office. And if Republicans are no longer in power, I think the Kennedy Center, I think Trump's name will come off that if there is a change in administration.
24:04Katie Simpson:But these other things. He gets that ballroom up. It's his forever. He gets that arc up. It's his forever. No one's going to throw that down. Well, that's it. And the thing about the ballroom, again, something's going to be built there because they already tore down the East Wing and they did it so quickly that ultimately there's no choice but to build something in its place.
24:26Paul Hunter:And that's the essence of how Trump goes ahead with his second term, right? 100%. Make those decisions. You know what? You know where you can make a decision where you don't get challenged? In an executive order. Push ahead, push ahead, push ahead, and then people have to deal with whatever the outcome is.
24:41Willy Lowry:In short, Donald Trump is here to stay, I think is the short answer. And we're not going to dive into tariffs, but show me a Democratic president in the future who will undo, who will send those auto jobs back to Canada.
24:56Paul Hunter:You don't want to talk about tariffs, Paul?
24:57Willy Lowry:I don't. Are you sure? Don't get going, Katie. Why did you open this up? Listen, before we go, we do have time to take a quick listener question. Colleen Smith sent an email asking about Venezuela and Cuba. I'm sorry, what? Remember those two places? remarking how those countries aren't really in the news much anymore. She writes in part, quote, I'm curious what your thoughts are on Trump's motive with Venezuela and Cuba now. Did he gain anything from those conflicts? Who wants to go first?
25:26Katie Simpson:I do prefer going second. I think Venezuela was unquestionably a victory for him. They were stunningly effective, stunningly efficient. They managed to, at least for the time being, seemingly kind of suss out and pick the right Venezuelan official that they could work with in Delce Rodriguez. And by all accounts, that's going somewhat according to plan. And then the domino effect in Cuba, I think, is essentially progressing the way the administration anticipated it. Why they are not stressing more on that, they have no choice. Iran's taking up all of the oxygen and it is not going as well as Venezuela.
26:15Paul Hunter:No, I have a couple of thoughts about this. You know, one, why are we not hearing about it as frequently? It's because the news cycle in America moves so quickly. Paul, that's a point that you've made previously.
26:24Willy Lowry:Tsunami of news.
26:25Paul Hunter:It's like flood the zone, as Steve Bannon, a former Trump advisor, once said. What meets the bar for news if everything is an emergency all at once? That kind of stuff. So that's why we're not necessarily hearing about it as frequently. But I also think both Democrats and Republicans had long complained about Nicolas Maduro, Nicolas Maduro, his involvement in the drug trade, his human rights record, all of that kind of stuff, and his concern on the sort of the global stage. And then Trump goes in, does it big, Trump style. And now what's next? Well, it's what Trump wants next. And what does Trump want next?
27:03Paul Hunter:It's about the oil. And so there is a little thing that, you know, is an irritant that is a problem. And then Trump goes in and acts and then everyone's like, well, what's really going on here? And I also think it sort of lends itself to where this conversation started with crime. Willie, you talked about how your kids are used to sirens and fireworks, the sound of fireworks. I have, there was a point when I was living here, I would hear gunshots so frequently that, you know, it would be once or twice a week. You and I don't live too terribly far from each other. And there legitimately have been challenges with crime.
27:39Paul Hunter:But the overall trend, it's getting better. But there was a nub there. There was something there. There are challenges with crime in D.C. And what does Donald Trump do? He goes in and trumps it. He has a huge response. And then it's like, well, what is this really about? Why are the National Guard troops here? What is the message they're meant to send? There's one little nub of something that is legitimate there. And then it turns into something completely different.
28:06Willy Lowry:I agree with all of that.
28:08Paul Hunter:And that's our podcast.
28:09Willy Lowry:Oil, Maduro, and in and out fast with Venezuela. Decisive. Decisive. And on Cuba, man, that secures a bunch of votes in Florida, doesn't it? Sure. You're welcome, Marco Rubio, by the way. And on the tsunami of news, I would add as well. That's why we don't hear about these things as much. Too much has happened. Too much has happened and continues to. Thanks to Colleen for sending us that question. If you have something you'd like to ask or feedback about what you're hearing, send us an email to WashingtonPod, all one word, at cbc.ca. That's WashingtonPod at cbc.ca. Or leave a comment for us on Spotify.
28:43Paul Hunter:And don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app.
28:46Willy Lowry:Thanks, Katie. Thanks, Willie. Willie, sorry we didn't get to presidential libraries. I know you were. I did my homework, so a little hurt. But it's okay, Uncle Paul. We'll have a whole episode on that. And we'll do all of this again next week. Bye for now.
29:08Katie Simpson:For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.
From the publisher
From a gigantic arch set to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, to the deployment of National Guard troops, to the construction of a massive White House ballroom, the face of America’s capital city is changing during Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president.
And while some critics have dismissed Trump’s projects as garish, the president is undeniably leaving his stamp on the historic district. Today on Two Blocks from the White House, CBC’s Washington correspondents Paul Hunter, Willy Lowry and Katie Simpson report.
