“"Under that were designs of the ballroom. And he starts talking to us about the columns and how some of the columns are evocative of Rome. And then on the other side, the columns are evocative of Athens. And he's happy that they are a little bit either wider or more spaced apart or both than the columns at the Supreme Court. And that was like the first 15 minutes of this hour that we had."”

“"You would think that on the 17th day of the war that he would have maps of the Middle East or maps of troop deployments — who knows,"”

“"He didn't really want to talk about that. He didn't really want to talk about policy specifics. He wanted to describe himself as winning. And he wanted to show us how he had remade Washington."”

“"It was very clear," Haberman recalled, "what his mind was on while we were there. And what it was not really on was the war,"”

“it's "a legacy thing."”

“"What interests him are things that you can see and touch,"”

“"[T]here is no precedent in U.S. history of a sitting president devising such endeavors in their own name."”

“"He is spending a huge amount of energy, mental and otherwise, on these renovation projects, beautification projects around Washington, and then monuments to self,"”

“70% of President Trump's mindshare ("maybe plus or minus 5%") goes to his gilding, construction, renovation, renaming and tribute projects.”