Construction on President Trump's massive gilded arch near Arlington National Cemetery is set to begin within weeks, but a legal challenge from Vietnam veterans argues the monument will destroy historic sightlines honoring America's war dead.
The 250-foot neoclassical structure, dubbed the "Great Triumphal Arch," would rise from a traffic island at Memorial Circle in Arlington, Virginia, directly across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. It would stand nearly 90 feet taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the monument it was modeled after, and feature gold accents, a winged Lady Liberty statue, golden lions at the entrance, two gilded eagles, and the inscription "One Nation Under God." The project is privately funded and timed to coincide with America's 250th birthday celebrations.
Three Vietnam veterans, Michael Lemmon, Shaun Byrnes, and Jon Gundersen, along with architectural historian Calder Loth have sued to block the project, arguing the arch would obstruct the deliberately designed visual alignment between the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge, and Arlington House. That alignment, created more than a century ago, was intended to symbolize the reunion of North and South after the Civil War. The plaintiffs say it matters to every veteran who seeks burial at Arlington.
The Trump administration's legal justification rests on a 1925 congressional authorization for a pair of 166-foot columns at the same site. Those columns were never constructed. The administration now argues that century-old law covers the current arch project, a structure of entirely different design, far greater height, and presumably far greater cost.
Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group representing the plaintiffs, rejected that reasoning. He told AP News:
"Congress's authorization to have a particular project built at a particular time subject to a specific price cap by a now-disbanded commission can't reasonably be relied on to authorize a totally different independent project that's going to cost way more money centuries into the future."
Sansone also warned the monument would fundamentally change the character of the National Mall. "The project will have an enormous impact and transform the National Mall," he said.
The administration, meanwhile, has been clearing regulatory obstacles one by one. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts gave the project early approval. And the FAA determined the arch does not pose a threat to air safety, a significant finding given the monument's proximity to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The main structure stands roughly 160 feet tall, with the winged figure and eagles bringing the total to 250 feet.
Perhaps the most revealing document in the dispute came from the administration's own National Park Service. A 133-page report acknowledged that the arch will have "adverse effects on historic properties" and will break the symbolic sightline alignment between the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge, and Arlington House. The report identified the National Mall, U.S. Capitol, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Georgetown Historic District, and the National Cathedral among the sites whose visual setting would be affected.
Yet the Park Service concluded the location was "historically appropriate" and that the adverse effects "cannot be fully avoided while retaining the location-dependent purpose of the undertaking." In other words, the monument belongs there precisely because the site is significant, and the damage to that significance is an acceptable trade-off.
That conclusion is expected to strengthen the administration's hand in court. But it also hands the plaintiffs a documented admission: the government itself recognizes the arch will alter what veterans and visitors see when they look from the Lincoln Memorial toward the cemetery where more than 400,000 service members are buried.
The administration has framed the project as part of a broader effort to leave a lasting architectural mark on the capital. The arch is one of several grand aesthetic projects Trump has pursued during his second term, an effort to reshape Washington's physical landscape in a way few modern presidents have attempted. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has championed the initiative publicly.
As Breitbart reported in early September, construction was expected to begin within two weeks. Burgum called the arch a landmark achievement in the making:
"This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, befitting the most powerful Capital in the World."
The arch was designed by Nicolas Leo Charbonneau, an architect at Harrison Design whose specialty is sacred and classical architecture. A source familiar with the project described him to the New York Post as "an extremely talented classical architect", "not just some guy who's copying and pasting columns." The design is unambiguously neoclassical, a deliberate departure from the modernist and minimalist monuments that have dominated Washington in recent decades.
That choice reflects a broader aesthetic argument the administration has been willing to make: that the nation's capital should look grand, permanent, and rooted in Western architectural tradition. Whether one finds the arch inspiring or intrusive, the ambition behind it is not small.
The legal fight, though, centers on something more concrete than taste. The veterans suing to stop the project are not arguing against monuments in general. They are arguing that this particular monument, at this particular site, will block the view that gives Arlington its meaning, the unbroken line from Lincoln's memorial to the graves of those who fought to preserve the union Lincoln saved. The administration's willingness to push past institutional resistance is well documented across multiple fronts, and here it collides with the concerns of men who earned their standing on battlefields, not in courtrooms.
The case raises a question the courts will have to answer: does a century-old authorization for a project that was never built give a sitting president the legal cover to build something far bigger, far different, and far more expensive in its place? Sansone and his clients say no. The administration says yes. The Park Service's own report suggests the answer is complicated, it admits the harm but endorses the result.
With construction reportedly imminent, the timeline for a judicial resolution is tight. The Newsmax report on the project comes as the legal and regulatory pieces continue moving simultaneously, approvals advancing on one track, litigation on another.
Meanwhile, the broader political environment surrounding the Trump administration remains turbulent. Republicans face steep midterm headwinds on multiple fronts, and the president's legacy projects, however striking, exist alongside policy battles over immigration, the economy, and federal authority that continue to define his second term.
The arch itself, if built, would be visible for miles, a permanent addition to a skyline that has changed remarkably little since the Washington Monument was completed in 1884. Economic pressures on everyday Americans may dominate the midterm conversation, but the physical reshaping of the capital is the kind of project that outlasts any election cycle.
Grand ambitions deserve serious debate, not rubber stamps. When the men who carried rifles in Vietnam say a monument threatens the ground where their brothers are buried, the least a government can do is slow down long enough to listen.
