This Friday, thanks to everyone. At home for joining us on the beat. We begin with a president confronted sometimes to his actual face about if he has now become preoccupied with his vanity projects, these sort of late stage anti-democracy, pseudo-autocratic style, and self-glurification efforts when we are quite clearly in an economic gas crisis of his making

and an ongoing war, even though many hope that the ceasefire holds. Donald Trump now demanding

the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool be painted a color of his choosing. Now, the point here is not

which color it should be. He says blue is better than what it was.

The point is whether this type of thing is anywhere near the literal top 20 or 30 things

that President should be worried about given the problems facing our country and real people.

The ballroom cost is now a billion dollars,

veterans groups suing over this proposal to focus on building a massive arch, and while other

presidents, to be fair, have been involved in certain what we might call symbolic building

projects and efforts around Washington, D.C., and we do have this anniversary, a lot of this just feels

completely off base. Americans are concerned about the war. We just saw the ceasefire tested with that

missile firefight last night. Trump visiting the reflecting pool because of all the things he could do

on a work day, and mind you, he's not working full days that we can measure.

But on the days where he is in Washington, actually presidenting, this is what he's spending his time on.

It's the back problem for in Iran.

Why focus on all these projects right now?

You know why?

Because I want to keep our country beautiful and safe. Beautiful also. It's nice. It was a disgusting place. Such a stupid question, you asked. We're fixing up the reflecting pond to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and you say, why are you fixing up?

This is not the sound of a great communicator summoning public works projects or finding a way to

argue for unity or, again, perhaps mentioning the anniversary. No, this is someone who seems to have lost the plot

according to many critics. It's what they call in our business a split-screen moment.

You saw we split one way to look at it, but the public doesn't need a reminder of a headline

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