Washington is about to get a whole lot shinier — and the pearl-clutchers are already hyperventilating.
The Trump administration is reportedly shelling out $5 million to restore and regild the massive horse statues flanking the Lincoln Memorial with nearly pure gold leaf ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebration.
The four towering bronze equestrian sculptures — known as The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace — have sat around the Lincoln Memorial for decades looking weathered, blotchy and about as inspiring as a DMV waiting room. Their last major restoration dates back to 1970, and years of wear have left the once-gilded details looking tired and uneven.
Now, under President Donald Trump’s renewed push to “beautify” the nation’s capital, the statues are getting a luxury-level facelift.
According to federal contracting records first highlighted by NOTUS, the National Park Service awarded a contract on April 21 to Maryland-based The Guilder’s Studio, Inc. to fully conserve and regild the sculptures using 23.75-karat gold leaf. The contract reportedly calls for “the full conservation and regilding of four monumental equestrian bronze sculptures” and notes that the project includes “comprehensive bronze conservation.”
Translation: the horses are headed from dull bronze to Mar-a-Lago chic.
The restoration is expected to wrap sometime before the nation’s semiquincentennial festivities hit full swing in 2026, though government timelines reportedly list Sept. 30 as the current projected completion date. Officials are also preparing for a broader patriotic makeover across the capital as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary next July.
And naturally, the Beltway outrage machine is already revving up.
Critics are moaning about taxpayer dollars, despite Washington routinely vaporizing billions on bureaucratic nonsense before lunch. But supporters argue the project fits squarely into Trump’s long-running campaign to restore grandeur, safety and tourism appeal to the capital city — something D.C. desperately needs after years of crime spikes, homeless encampments and urban decay drove visitors away.
Trump himself telegraphed the effort months ago. “People are flocking to D.C. again, and soon, the beautification will begin!” the president wrote on Truth Social last year.
Apparently, he meant it.
The gold-plated horse project is just one piece of a much larger federal beautification push. Government spending data reviewed by NOTUS reportedly identified roughly $95 million in D.C.-focused improvement projects approved between December 2025 and April 2026. And there may be even more cash coming.
Earlier this month, ABC News reported that the administration was exploring a potential $400 million settlement tied to a child privacy lawsuit involving TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Instead of funneling money toward payouts for users, the administration was reportedly considering directing some of the settlement funds into civic improvement and beautification efforts in Washington.
Cue the outrage from the same crowd that spent years insisting ugly concrete barriers, graffiti and collapsing infrastructure were somehow “vibrant urban character.”
Love him or hate him, Trump clearly wants the capital to look less like a rundown transit station and more like the front porch of the United States. And if that means Lincoln’s horses get dipped in gold? In Trump’s Washington, subtlety was never really the point.
