Sept. 18, 2025

Historic Erasure and Ballroom Dreams: Trump's Greatest Hits

Show Notes
Transcript

Patrick Gutfield covers the Trump administration's order to remove slavery materials from National Parks (apparently whip scars are too negative for the gift shop), Luigi Mangione dodging terrorism charges for the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing, and Trump's two-hundred-million-dollar White House ballroom project that's turning the South Lawn into a construction zone. From sanitizing Civil War history to chainsaw diplomacy, it's revisionist history meets extreme home makeover

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Callaroga shark media from Washington, d C. Where I cannot

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tell a lie. We're chopping down trees. This is valid.

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I can't tell a lie, which is why I'm announcing

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my candidacy for twenty twenty eight. Let's hit this. The

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Trump administration has just ordered National Park Service sites is

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to remove materials about slavery and Native Americans. And when

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I say materials, I mean actual historical evidence, including that

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famous eighteen sixty three photograph of a formally enslaved man's

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scarred back that helped fuel the abolitionist movement. Now, Trump's

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March executive order instructed parks to get rid of anything

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that inappropriately disparages Americans, which raises the question who exactly

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is being disparaged? Here the slaveholders, the people who whipped

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human beings until their backs looked like hamburger meat at

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Fort Pulaski and Georgia. They're removing the scourged back. That's

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the photograph showing a man named Peter, also known as Gordon,

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whose back was covered in whip scars. This photo was

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so powerful it shocked the nation in the eighteen hundreds

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and helped turn people against slavery. But now too negative

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for the gift shop. Apparently, Over at Manassas National Battlefield

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Park in Virginia, they're taking down a sign that dared

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to criticize the Lost Cause mythology, you know, that charming

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post Civil War narrative that painted the Confederacy as noble

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in slavery as well, not the whole point of the war.

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And at Arlington House, Robert E. Lee's old place, they've

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banned a children's booklet from the Junior Ranger program, the

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offending sentences. In eighteen twenty nine, Robert E. Lee promised

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to serve the army and protect the United States. In

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eighteen sixty one, he broke his promise and fought for slavery.

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That's it. That's what crossed the line. Not sugarcoating treason

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for the kids. A Manhattan judge ruled Tuesday that Luigi

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Mangione will not face state terrorism charges for the killing

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of unit At Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December, which

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means someone finally looked at the legal definition of terrorism

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and said, yeah, this doesn't quite fit. New York Supreme

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Court Justice Gregory Carrow noted that every murder has the

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potential to induce some degree of fear, adding that a

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random murder in the subway will cause writers to feel

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fearful about riding the subway, but that doesn't make every

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subway crime an act of terrorism. But then again, most

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New Yorkers are just happy when they get a seat

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and don't really worry about the whole murder aspect of

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the subway. Judge Carro wrote that while this obviously wasn't

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ordinary street crime, that doesn't mean all non street crimes

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were meant to be included within the reach of the

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terrorism statute. The defendant was arrested at a McDonald's in

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Pennsylvania while allegedly on the run, which has to be

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the most anti climactic ending to a man hunt since

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the unibomber got caught because his brother recognized his writing style,

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or that time a convicted felon became president. There is

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one good thing this administration is good at, and it's

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chopping down plants. Trump is finally getting his White House ballroom,

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and he's not letting a little thing like the South

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lawn get in his way. Work crews have started cutting

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down trees and digging up parts of the grounds to

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make room for what Trump calls his two hundred million dollar,

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ninety thousand square foot dream dance floor. Right there, you

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see all the trucks, Trump asked reporters on Thursday, pointing

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toward the east wing like a proud homeowner showing off

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his new deck project. Except this deck costs more than

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most people's entire neighborhoods and requires relocating the First Lady's office.

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Now you might think a project this big would have

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some paperwork involved, architectural plans, permits, maybe a rough sketch

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on a napkin, But no, the White House hasn't released

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any plans or submitted anything to the National Capital Planning Commission,

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which is the government body that you shall reviews these things.

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They're basically doing the construction equivalent of ask for forgiveness,

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not permission. The crews are in what officials call the

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preservation stage, which sounds very environmental until you realize it

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means they're chopping down historic White House trees and moving

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them to an off site nursery. The National Park Service,

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which manages the grounds, won't say how many trees are

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getting the acts, but they assure us they're taking great

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care to honor the historic landscape. Nothing says honoring history

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like a chainsaw. At dawn. Photos show crews sawing off

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tree limbs before cutting down entire trees, which is the

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kind of thing that would get you arrested in most neighborhoods,

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but is apparently fine when you're building a ballroom bigger

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than some airports. The East Wing offices, including the First Ladies,

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have been temporarily relocated, which means everyone had to pack

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up their desks so Trump could have a really big

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room for parties. The Visitors Center also got moved because

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apparently tourists will just have to wait until the ballroom

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is finished to see where democracy happens. Trump has wanted

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this ballroom since at least twenty ten, when he offered

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to build one for Obama and got turned down, which

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means we all know what this is really about. But again,

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mark my words, we'll have carriage horses by Friday. Trump

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promises to pay for it with private donations and says

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he'll write a check if necessary, which raises the obvious

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question who exactly is donating two hundred million dollars for

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a White House ballroom. He's promised to release donor names,

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but so far that list remains as mysterious as the

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architectural plans or the plans to release the Epstein files.