Dan Diamond is a White House reporter with the Washington Post and has broken many of the stories centered on Trump's architectural ambitions.

President Trump has looked across Washington and tried to change parts of the city, everything from large monuments to single blades of grass.

He is using executive authority to accomplish some of those changes.

He has a lot of leeway on what he wants to do on the White House grounds.

And when he's been challenged, he's been able so far to win most of those battles in court.

White House officials say that is in part a continuation of what President Biden did when he fired holdovers from Trump's first term.

President Trump has gone further and completely cleaned house on these panels, putting in not just his allies, but people who really don't have any expertise at all, people like his young executive assistant.

These panels have since approved some of Trump's most controversial projects.

Talk us through it.

Well first, thanks for having me.

President Trump has been arguing for months that he needs his ballroom, he needs this hardened space in case of an emergency, in case of an attack.

What my colleague Noah Robertson and I reported is there already is a space on the White House grounds in case something like that happens.

And this space was constructed in secret.

It has been, um, closely guarded by former officials.

Presidents have not gotten up in front of microphones and talked about all of the drone facilities or whatever else they wanna put in there.

I mean, that was part of what I found so striking about your reporting, this contrast between the way previous administrations had really tried to, to keep this a secret and the way that this current administration was advertising the need for something that may already exist.

And so, right, I mean, can you go into a little bit greater detail, Dan, what has happened at HHS that made the White House feel like they needed to bring in someone new?

As your listeners know, the secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., very controversial figure, not someone who necessarily had all the HHS skill set qualities.

If you looked back at past secretaries of this sweeping department, they were usually very, government officials.

Javier Becerra, he had been the Attorney General of California.

Kathleen Sebelius had been, I think, Governor and the Insurance Commissioner.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had not had one of these big government jobs running a big organization.

He hadn't been University president like Tommy Thompson, another past HHS secretary.

What's he been up to?

That doesn't happen here, but that's really important, isn't it, in the United States?

That's right, Sam.

This is a tradition that goes back a century or so.

It goes back to the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and World War II.

There have been numerous major events that have happened where the press were there with the president, the shooting of John F. Kennedy Jr., and other attempted strikes on, on presidents, the events of September 11, 2001, where reporters were embedded with George W. Bush as he flew around the country.

And the deal is that, you know, the, the president owes the American people some level of transparency.

The American people want to know what is happening with the president.

Mm.

The public spat is indicative of a broader frustration that the president's attempts to renovate the pool more quickly and more cheaply than his predecessors has not gone according to plan.

President Trump and his deputies thought that the Reflecting Pool would be a perfect example of how he could fix and improve Washington.

I was in the White House some weeks ago, right after the pool had been completed, where officials were boasting about it and said, "This is exactly what Trump wants to do.

He's gonna cut through bureaucracy.

He's going to do these things faster and cheaper than anyone thought possible."

The project was not completed by Trump's desired July 4th date.

It is not President Trump's fault that this pool has had problems.

They predated him.

How serious do you think this attempt to make daylight saving time permanent is? And can you tell us a little bit about how often this has moved through Congress?

I think this is a very serious effort.

It has the backing of President Trump, who has stumped for it in public and in private.

We know that the Senate is open to passing this kind of legislation.

They did it a couple of years ago, and the House has essentially achieved half the job by getting the legislation through.

I think what makes this a little different than the last time the Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act a few years ago That time, it was a little bit of a sneak attack by the advocates for this legislation.

They really wanted to get permanent daylight saving time done, and they used a maneuver that caught many senators by surprise.

So why this moment? And is it more geographical than political, would you say?

What does it all mean?

Well, first, thanks for having me.

And I think the audio somewhat speaks for itself, Alicia.

The idea that the health secretary of the United States, a cabinet member, is making phone calls, and not just to Rick Stewart, but to another candidate in Iowa too, essentially trying to get them out of the race to help clear the field for Republican candidates.

I'm not sure if there has been a recent precedent of this, but there are a series of rules and laws that are intended to protect against federal officials from intervening in races and certainly making any promises.

And yes, as Rick Stewart said, no specific promise was offered, but the implication of the call was pretty clear.

What is motivating him? What is his thinking? Or who is it that is asking him to place these calls and play these roles as messenger on behalf of the Trump administration?

or maybe taking that apart in pieces, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is popular, at least relatively popular, in the Trump cabinet, according to polling.

This is not gonna be paid for by the taxpayer.

But a few months ago, it became clear that the White House wanted taxpayer money, too, that they were going to Congress, hat in hand, saying, "We want about 200 million or 220 million for White House security upgrades." And these security upgrades would come in the form of the ballroom defenses.

President Trump has talked [laughs] about putting drones on top of the ballroom, having other defensive capabilities in the structure, and then underneath the ballroom as well.

We know that it's going to go some layers down, maybe six, seven, eight layers down, with military offices and other military space, and that would come from taxpayers.

There has been a recent effort to take some money that the Secret Service got, the Secret Service, who keep the president safe here in the United States, to take some money that were allocated for, say, Secret Service training, and repurpose it to White House security.

There is indication that that security might just be President Trump's ballroom.

Mm.

And he was behind on putting together his team and his agenda, and that first year there was a lot of flailing as some of the wrong choices were put in big jobs as he tried to figure out how to work Washington.

Uh-huh, uh-huh

... who historically might have taken a project like the White House ballroom, asked months or years of questions, sent it back to the drawing board, said, "This project is way too big.

It should be half the size," that review team doesn't exist anymore.

The people that President Trump has put on that commission include his young executive assistant, include some people who currently serve in the Trump administration.

The chairman of that commission has been very much an ambassador for President Trump's ideas.

He doesn't seem like someone who's objectively weighing in.

He's going around the world talking about how great President Trump's ballroom will be.

Hmm

Dan, what happened?

Well, a few things happened, Jen.

One, the project got bigger.

It wasn't just resurfacing the basin.

It became repairing some cracks as well.

But we also don't know everything that happened.

There's been some great reporting, particularly by the New York Times, about some of the challenges and decisions behind the scenes.

How much is the construction expected to cost?

That's Dan Diamond, White House reporter at The Washington Post, who's been closely following Trump's various plans.

This arch would be built in a traffic roundabout.

It would change probably traffic patterns in the DC area, and most importantly, it would change the views.

So if you are going to Arlington National Cemetery, if you are paying respects to someone's grave, historically you might stand at Arlington National Cemetery and look out at Washington, DC.

If this arch gets built, you might be looking at the arch.

But the Trump administration has transformed that process and who controls it.

President Trump has fired holdovers on some federal panels that review construction projects in Washington, DC.

He has put in allies and deputies.

A spokesperson told you the problem, quote, "stems from incorrect entries," as you just noted, "if provider or provider representative supplied information in the wrong places." What do doctors and nurses say about that kind of accusation, and have you seen improvements since publishing your report last week wh- during which a lot of people found out about this problem?

Well, Jake, I, I should first say that my colleague and I, Ence Morse, we didn't publish this story right away.

We went to federal officials.

We gave them a few days to try to fix the problem.

We didn't want to put a spotlight on an issue and make bad actors aware that it existed.

And I, I did try to speak to some of these providers and tell them, "Hey, your Social Security numbers are in a file that we [laughs] were able to get." Uh, I will say that it is very hard to call and tell people even if you say that you're a reporter that you're talking to them about leaked Social Security numbers and keep them on the phone.

So there are a number of people who probably didn't realize that I was bringing them a real story until the story published.

Explain, um, how you, why you described it as a DOGE-linked initiative.

Mm.

The construction crews were on site starting to build the ballroom, and the National Trust said, "None of this is okay.

There should not be a precedent where the US president just tears down parts of the White House and starts rebuilding it without some oversight, without Congress getting to weigh in, without the public getting to comment." And a, a federal judge essentially agreed with them after some back and forth.

The federal judge ordered, uh, that the ballroom construction be halted.

He said if there was national security work that needed to be done, if there was a top-secret bunker, for instance, uh, which, which we kind of know exists, if that needs to be worked on, that's okay.

But the big ballroom that President Trump wants, that the judge said cannot move forward until Congress gives its okay.

Now, there is a- another court here in, in America, an appeals court, that has put that order on pause, but either way, that legal challenge is probably the last big hurdle, outside of the logistical ones, facing this ballroom.

It's been used, isn't it, by Republicans in Congress, by the Department of Justice, as a reason why the courts should get out of the way.

Dan Diamond has been following Means' confirmation process for The Washington Post.

There are several senators, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Republicans on that committee, who were skeptical of Casey Means.

So at this point, the nomination is somewhat stalled just in the committee.

And if it made its way to the floor, I think there are a number of Republicans who have buyer's remorse about voting for Kennedy last year and would not be keen to vote for one of his allies for this big job.

But Diamond said there's a decent chance this could drag on for a while yet.

We have seen before some nominations just stall for months and months and then eventually expire.

If we get to the end of the year and Congress doesn't move on this nomination, if Casey Means doesn't withdraw, then the White House would have to either renominate her or would have to put someone else forward.

He told us the judge appeared unconvinced by any of Trump's justifications.

The White House has made several arguments.

They've said that there is a fund that Congress has set aside for maintenance and alterations on the White House grounds.

Judge Leon threw out that argument.

He said that's just for small changes, like fixing the light bulbs, not for building a giant ballroom.

The White House has also argued that there is a way for the administration to take these donations through, essentially, the National Park Service.

The judge says it doesn't make sense to take money in through this agency for this other project, so that didn't fly either.

Almost all of them were critical of the ballroom."

What kinds of drugs are available at these discounted prices right now? Why these specific drugs, and are more expected to be added?

The Trump administration has negotiated with 16 different pharmaceutical companies.

Some of those companies have put their drugs on this website so far.

So Novo Nordisk, uh, which makes drugs that are used for weight loss, like Ozempic and Wegovy, you can go on the website and find access to discounts on, on those drugs.

Uh, EMD Serono, which does fertility medication, there's significant discounts for drugs, uh, there as well.

And then other drugs, um, around, uh, diabetes, uh, thyroid medication.

But notably, a lot of these drugs are older, and there are generic alternatives for these medications.

Will enough Americans feel the benefit of this program in coming months to help the president make that case?

This was going to be the reception room, and then I was gonna build a beautiful, beautiful ballroom like I have at Mar-a-Lago.

And frankly, he's spoken about this for more than this year.

It goes all the way back to the first Obama administration.

David Axelrod, uh, an advisor to President Obama, has said that President Trump, then Donald Trump, the builder, called and pitched him in 2010 on building a ballroom.

So we know that he has wanted to do this for a long time, and the renderings look very much like a Trump resort.

Uh, uh, I'm, I'm not an expert in ballrooms, Noelle.

Perhaps there's an architectural eye that would be able to distinguish between this ballroom and say, the Mar-a-Lago ballroom or the ballroom that, uh, President Trump has at his resort at Turnberry, Scotland, but, but they're all kind of evocative of each other.

How does this renovation of the East Wing or this rebuilding of the East Wing, how does that compare to the other changes that President Trump has brought to the White House, physical changes?

Can you lay that out for us?

So this was not a new study of people.

This was a study, essentially of past studies, a scoping review as one person put it to me, and what the researchers who are, are well-regarded and this study was seen as, uh, legitimate by-... people who are not in the Trump administration.

What this study found was a pattern, it said, of, of association between Tylenol consumption during pregnancy and the possibility of autism or ADHD in children later, like a signal in the noise.

This is not the first time that this question has been explored.

Past studies had not found a connection between Tylenol and, and autism.

And really, it's not just Tylenol, it's the key ingredient, acetaminophen, in Tylenol, uh, which is used around the world, not just in the US, and called other things besides Tylenol.

You know, both men, the President and RFK Jr. come from this sort of celebrity world, um, significant scandal and strong belief in fringe theories and I wonder how much that shared approach and shared worldview kind of led them to this place together?

Dan, as we're talking about these medications, like, really, when we step back, this conversation around autism itself and the way it's being framed by this administration, I- I'm just wondering how advocates within the autism community feel about how this is all being discussed, how this is being framed, and the, i- if there's any sort of tension there in, in discussing autism in this way.

It's mixed in the autism community based on people I've talked to, people who've spoken to my colleagues.

On the one hand, there is excitement and hope that the power of the government is being pushed on this area where many parents, researchers, others have long wanted it.

At the same time, autism research in the past was more carefully done, more openly discussed, and that's the kind of approach that autism leaders want to see, not something that is essentially a quick fix overnight that could backfire with misleading belief in drugs that may or may not be linked to autism after all.

(instrumental music plays) And I also think there are many advocates in the autistic community who are really nervous about what this Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing and saying with relation to autism.

He has been an advocate for more help for that community and he's raised a number of questions about causes of autism but he's often done it by drawing on false claims or, or things that have been debunked.

So, to have that person leading this new effort and investigation, it's hard for many people to trust what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is saying, uh, when he stands behind a government podium.

(laughs)

Wow.

She was going to be fired if she didn't leave.

Um, but long story short, the head of the CDC, uh, the Trump officials want her gone.

Uh, and, and made that very clear by putting out a public statement.

And that was followed by the resignation of some very senior CDC officials, career officials who had been there for, in some cases, decades.

Dan Jernigan, who has helped lead the infectious disease response.

Uh, Demetre Daskalakis, uh, who worked on Mpox in addition to COVID and other issues.

But prior to all this, as you report, there was an effort to try to, I don't know what you would call it, save her? Make sure that she wasn't fired? How would you describe it and what, w- tell us what happened.

(laughs)

Um, (laughs) but, but you're right, John, that there is a debate right now over how to pay for, uh, the hope of keeping the Trump tax cuts and, and other goals that Republicans have.

They're looking for $880 billion in savings in the House.

A lot of that is expected to come from Medicaid, uh, and, and that is focused in specifically on, um, changes such as the matching rate for Medicaid.

So what, what that is, Medicaid, the program for low income, uh, Americans, it's administered by states, but the federal government matches the payments.

This has been a long time source of frustration for Republicans.

They say that it's an open-ended spigot.

I cannot understand it at any level other than self-sabotage, but they are doing it for some reason.

(laughs)

(laughs) Um, so the White House, uh, has defended this striking move on, on a number of grounds, Jen.

And I was at the White House last week when Press Secretary, Carolyn Levitt, said it was about saving taxpayers money, uh, whi- which has been the overall line that's been used with a lot of the big cuts.

But with the health agencies specifically, I spoke to an official this weekend who said, "Look, like the United States did not do great on COVID.

Uh, the United States, uh, lags behind on these measures like life expectancy and chronic disease, so we are within our rights to go after the health agencies that haven't been doing their jobs." This is the White House argument that, uh, this is accountability for lack of performance in the past.

I think the obvious response, which, which I have offered (laughs) and, uh, many experts have noted is just because there's been under-performance doesn't mean you get rid of everybody.

Uh, y- you, you want to strategically think about how to improve what hasn't been working.

On Sunday, he wrote on social media that the MMR vaccine is "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles," which is true, but Dan, w- what do you- what do you make of Kennedy's contradictions here?