Trump Says He's Rebuilding Dulles Airport

President Trump said Tuesday that his administration will embark on a reconstruction of Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia. "We're also going to rebuild Dulles airport because it's not a good airport," Trump said during a meeting of his cabinet members at the White House. "It should be a great airport, and it's not a good airport at all. It's a terrible airport." Dulles is one of the three Washington-area airports and its quality and utility is a hotly-debated topic among Washingtonians, the AP reports.

• Trump, a former real estate mogul, said the Dulles building is good but that it was "incorrectly designed." He nonetheless praised Eero Saarinen, the Finnish-American architect who designed the main terminal at Dulles. "We're going to turn that around and we're going to make Dulles airport— serving Washington and Virginia, Maryland, etc.—we're gonna make that into something really spectacular. We have an amazing plan for it."
• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy added that the administration is continuing its efforts to repair the so-called "people movers" at Dulles that ferry travelers in between concourses. One crashed in November.

• The meeting lasted more than two hours. The president started things off by noting that it was the last time his cabinet would gather until 2026. And, though marathon sessions with his top advisers lavishing praise have become a Trump trademark since he returned to the White House, this latest installment felt at times like a holiday break was needed, the AP reports.
• Trump offered lengthy opening comments largely rehashing his key previous policy announcements from recent months and repeating old grievances, going back to his falsehoods about having won the 2020 election.
• After that, as each official took turns speaking, a TV camera trained on Trump showed him struggling to stay alert. The president sat back in his chair with his eyes occasionally drooping and sometimes shutting completely. Trump's apparent sleepiness followed his criticism of a recent New York Times story examining his schedule and stamina at age 79. Trump again slammed the Times story early in Tuesday's meeting and even slipped into the third person to assure all involved that "Trump is sharp."
• Another indication that things were dragging came from budget director Russell Vought, who was spotted sketching a bucolic scene on White House letterhead. Vought drew mountains framed by pine trees topped by the kind of friendly-seeming clouds that public television legend Bob Ross preferred to crowd his serene landscape paintings with. The budget chief also sketched an arrow underneath his mountain. Where it was supposed to be pointing was not clear.