My first piece for @NYMag nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

Had fun talking to @Timodc about my Trump-led ballroom tour with a little Fetterman convo for good measure. piped.video/FdH0o5b9ZKA?is=aif6…

Donald Trump’s White House ballroom is set to be a gold-adorned Roman temple of a building with 40-foot ceilings and 22,000 square feet of space. Trump tells Ben Terris it shares design aspects with the Palace of Versailles but is in many ways going to be “more beautiful.” nymag.visitlink.me/CCtcE3

“For me, it’s good. Most of my time is doing other things, like the markets, Iran, Venezuela, the military. A lot of people who don’t do construction, it drives them crazy. For me, it’s actually relaxing because I’m really good at it,” says Donald Trump. nymag.visitlink.me/v874Sz

Ossoff made headlines earlier this year for positing that Trump is building monuments to himself because he knows no one else will do it once he’s gone “That’s true,” Trump says. “Nobody will do it once I’m gone. When I leave here, nobody will.” nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

There is nothing Donald Trump enjoys more than talking construction. In less than two years, he has nearly finished a new White House helipad, turned the Rose Garden into a sculpture-laden patio, and made a disastrous attempt to refurbish the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. Since Trump’s return to the White House, his administration has made changes to more than 100 structures in Washington, D.C. The total cost: somewhere north of a billion dollars. The biggest project, in terms of both cost (estimated to be $800 million when done) and presidential mindshare, is the ballroom and the military bunker that will be tucked underneath. A senior White House official says Trump views all this building as part of his legacy. “When the ballroom is built, everyone will always know in perpetuity that it was built by Donald Trump. Are Democrats going to come in and rip it down? I have a hard time believing that,” he says. “I don’t think they could, physically,” Trump tells Washington correspondent @bterris. “I think it would be very hard. It’s meant for if there’s a nuclear attack. I’m not sure you could take it down.” Trump hopes it will one day bear his name. “It should,” he says. “I don’t know if it will, but it should.” In the meantime, the project has become entangled in questions that range far beyond architecture. Construction has been tied up in legal battles. Donors are fretting about whether they could be called in front of congressional panels should Democrats win majorities in the midterms. The politics of the ballroom are objectively bad for Trump. “It gets in the way of the administration’s ability to tell the story of everything they’ve accomplished in the first year,” one Trump adviser says. Trump is aware of these concerns. He just doesn’t really care. “I think the people should be thankful for it,” he says. “A lot of people said, ‘Don’t do this interview,’” he tells Terris. “But I’m proud of the work I’m doing.” Read Terris’s exclusive interview with Trump: nymag.visitlink.me/nySu6b

Six months ago, we asked if Trump was thinking about changing the columns outside the White House. The White House denied it at the time. But @bterris got Trump on record musing about doing exactly that. (Though Trump confused Doric with Ionic.)

I asked Trump if he was building himself a bunker so he could hole up in the White House after the 2028 election. “I haven’t heard that one,” he said. “But I tell you what, it would be awfully tough to get you out. Nobody would be able to get you out.” nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

I wanted to know why President Trump is so obsessed with his ballroom and other architectural projects in Washington. So I went to the Oval Office and asked him. He ended up giving me an impromptu tour. Read about it here: nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

My hottest Lindsay Clancy take is that even if you take her defense as gospel (I don’t, but let’s say), I don’t get why she wants to be found not guilty, for any reason. If you told me I’d completely lost my mind and murdered all three of my children, whom I loved, you wouldn’t have to give me the death penalty. I’d beg for it. I'd be so guilt-ridden and horrified, I’d do it if no one else would. Why would I want to be released on the grounds of…anything? To go back home and do what, start a new life? To live the rest of my miserable days in an insane asylum, staring at a wall thinking about the babies I’d strangled? Honestly, even if you do believe she was genuinely *that disturbed*, the most merciful thing you could do is send her to the Lord and let him sort out the rest.

Ben Terris reports on the urgent, embarrassing, and occasionally convincing campaign by the Biden family to salvage their legacy. nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

Last week, at a Best Western in Sioux Falls, Joe Biden kissed a woman who wasn’t his wife on the mouth. That, and other observations about the return of the Bidens. nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

I asked US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who has reportedly been gunning for the AG job, whether she would prosecute President Trump if he shot someone on Pennsylvania Avenue. She wouldn’t answer. nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

Now that the much-beleaguered Pam Bondi has been fired, people who know Jeanine Pirro say she wants the job of attorney general. “The judge is very close to the president, talks to him all the time,” a source familiar says. Trump tells Ben Terris, “Jeanine Pirro’s fantastic.” nymag.visitlink.me/Fw556b

A White House official sounds glum about the fallout of the Powell probe in this NY Mag profile of Pirro

This didn’t make the story but once Jeanine Pirro met Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer. Pirro asked him why her dogs were so crazy. “Because you are,” she says he told her.

What it’s like to live with Judge Jeanine nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

If Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is famous for anything these days, it’s her willingness to obey Donald Trump. “She’ll do what Trump wants,” a former prosecutor who worked for her says. “She’s an opportunist who likes the limelight.” Now that the much-beleaguered Bondi has been fired, people who know Pirro say she wants the job of attorney general. “The judge is very close to the president, talks to him all the time,” a source familiar says. Trump tells @bterris, “Jeanine Pirro’s fantastic.” But so far, Pirro has struggled to get her biggest new projects off the ground. After six Democratic lawmakers enraged Trump by filming a video reminding active-duty members of the military that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders, it was Pirro who tried to indict the politicians. Her team failed to get even one member of the grand jury to go for it. And in March, a judge blocked Pirro’s attempts to subpoena Federal Reserve records as part of her investigation into Jerome Powell. Trump has seemingly forgiven her these setbacks, telling Terris, “She was put into an area that was very tough and unfair. Judges who are haters. Almost impossible to win a case.” An administration official says that Pirro calls the president regularly. But Pirro bristles at the implication that she lacks independence from Trump. “I have 32 years in this business; I’m not some fly-by-night dilettante who decided that she’s going to be a prosecutor because she’s good-looking or because she speaks well.” Could Pirro be the next attorney general? Read Terris’s full profile: nymag.visitlink.me/8mcj_J

Judge Jeanine rising? nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

Will Lewis arrived at the Washington Post with a lot of swagger and much goodwill. Two years later, the paper is in tatters. Charlotte Klein reports on how it all went so wrong. nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…