‘Could only happen to Trump’: President hijacks Cabinet meeting to cry about lawsuits over his radical DC plans

President launches into extended stemwinder of grievances ranging from lawsuits over the Kennedy Center to the Justice Department’s failure to bring sham charges against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell
President Donald Trump spent roughly 15 minutes of a cabinet meeting on Thursday complaining about a historic preservation group’s efforts to block him from shutting down the Kennedy Center for a purported reservation and grousing about the Justice Department being unable to prosecute the chairman of the Federal Reserve on fabricated charges.

The president was in the middle of a long soliloquy about fixing up the Washington, DC-based arts center — which was built as a memorial to his assassinated predecessor — when he began to claim the controversial renovation would be “under budget, ahead of schedule” and unfavorably compared the project to the long-running rehab of the nearly century-old Federal Reserve headquarters.

He quickly pivoted to airing a related grievance about the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a congressionally-charted nonprofit that has filed multiple lawsuits against his administration to block the construction of his planned White House ballroom after he ordered the historic East Wing reduced to rubble last fall.

“Everything I do, I get sued.

Under budget, ahead of schedule, I get sued over a ballroom that's going to be the most beautiful ballroom in the country ...

we get sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

They don't know what they're doing,” he said.

He also complained that he’d separately been facing litigation over the Kennedy Center project and suggested the lawsuit was only attributable to the center’s board — made up of loyalists he appointed after taking office and sacking the previous leadership — adding his name to the name of the organization.

“Then I just found out we got sued by that group and another group ...

I guess on the fixing up of again, I'll use the old name Kennedy Center — it’s going to be beautiful when you add the name Trump,” he said.

“But we got sued, and all I'm doing is fixing it up.

We're fixing broken marble.

We're putting on a roof because it leaks like a sieve.

We're fixing steel that's broken.

Same building, same exact building we're fixing.

It's going to be beautiful.

It's going to be so beautiful and safe ...

but think of it.

I get sued because I'm fixing up the Trump Kennedy Center.

We're going to make it gorgeous and safe.

We're fixing new windows, do this, but just all fix up.

I got sued by preservationists.”
“This could only happen to Trump,” he added.

The president eventually pivoted back to attacking the Federal Reserve renovation and the central bank’s chairman, Jerome Powell, with whom he has spent years feuding over Powell’s failure to keep interest rates low to help Republicans’ electoral prospects.

He groused that the historic preservation group that has fought his ballroom project hasn’t sued Powell over the long-running Federal Reserve headquarters rehab and accused the chairman of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“I don't blame him, but, but they don't sue a man who has taken this gorgeous building, ripped it down from the inside, taken ceilings that are as beautiful as you've ever seen, taking the ceilings down instead of leaving them, taking walls down that were two feet thick of solid concrete and plaster, replacing them with six inch walls with no insulation,” Trump said.

“But when, when Jeanine Pirro and Pam in the group, when they bring a suit ...

and then we have a judge that attacks us, attacks us, so we've got to get our priorities straight.

You know, it's, it's a very sad thing that's happened with the Fed.”
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