Donald Trump was asked to explain his sweeping makeover of Washington, D.C. Instead, he ended up cursing at the reporter.
In a wide-ranging interview with TIME, Trump became increasingly defensive when pressed about his construction projects and his efforts to put his stamp on the nation’s capital.
And when the questions kept coming, the president eventually snapped.
“You haven’t asked me one f***ing positive question,” Trump said.
There was a reason the questions kept coming.
Trump has embarked on an extraordinary building campaign around the White House and Washington, including major changes to the presidential residence and plans for a massive ballroom. TIME has also reported extensively on the national-security implications of his D.C. construction projects.
So the interviewer asked Trump to explain why these projects should matter to ordinary Americans.
Trump’s answer was revealing.
He argued that the White House is a “symbol of America” and represents “our greatness.”
Then he offered perhaps the strangest description of his construction projects yet.
“Maybe I do it better than anything I do, and it’s easy for me,” Trump said. “It’s actually relaxing.”
For Trump, remaking Washington apparently isn’t stressful. It’s relaxing. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s taxpayer money paying the bills, while putting his name on buildings feeds one of his favorite vanity obsessions.
“You know, for a lot of people, it drives them crazy,” he said. “For me, it’s relaxing,” he insisted.
And Trump clearly doesn’t seem to understand why everyone isn’t equally enthusiastic about the makeover.
“I don’t know what the hell’s wrong,” he said when discussing the reaction to his projects.
That reaction comes as Trump’s plans for Washington have expanded well beyond routine renovations.
His administration has pursued major physical changes to the White House complex, while Trump has also targeted other prominent institutions and landmarks in the capital.
The Kennedy Center is one of the most prominent examples.
Trump has repeatedly sought to rename the Kennedy Center after himself, and he left open the possibility of tearing down parts of the building.
Asked whether he was considering demolition, Trump declined to rule it out.
“I’m not committing to anything,” he told TIME. “We’re going to see how it plays out in court.”
A federal judge has separately ordered the administration to provide advance notice before making physical changes to the Kennedy Center, including demolition.
The administration has argued that the institution is badly deteriorated and that its finances are also in poor condition.
But Trump’s TIME interview offered a glimpse into how personally he appears to view the transformation of Washington.
He isn’t simply talking about construction.
He is talking about what he sees as his own contribution to the capital — and, by extension, his presidential legacy.
That may help explain why the questions appeared to irritate him so much.
The interview wasn’t limited to Washington.
Trump was also confronted about the economy, healthcare costs, his approval ratings, his Supreme Court nominees and his administration’s handling of the war with Iran.
Again and again, he pushed back against the premises behind the questions.
When told his poll numbers had “never been lower,” Trump dismissed them as “fake numbers” and claimed he could beat anyone running today by 20 points.
And when asked whether he should bear responsibility for Americans struggling with an increasingly expensive cost of living, Trump responded:
“No, because what?”
He then blamed the previous administration for what he described as historically high inflation and price increases.
The same frustration surfaced when Trump was asked about his Supreme Court appointments.
Trump has become increasingly critical of the justices he appointed after the court ruled against his administration on several major issues.
Asked whether he regretted putting them on the court, Trump said yes.
“I put them in. They voted against me too often,” he said.
But the interview kept circling back to the president’s relationship with the press.
Trump repeatedly complained about negative coverage and attacked what he described as unfair reporting.
As for the Washington makeover itself, Trump made his position pretty clear.
He likes doing it. He says it’s easy. And, remarkably, he says reshaping the nation’s capital is “relaxing.”
