WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from breaking ground for his towering memorial arch, but that hasn't stopped his administration from pushing forward with the plans for building it, starting with a glitzy new website launched Friday.
The site's debut is yet another sign of how much Trump is leaning into his efforts to make over the White House and Washington to his own gilded tastes, even after his party lost control of Congress in a midterm-election drubbing. It was the fourth day this week alone that the administration promoted his projects.
The website declares that the 250-foot (76-meter) structure — which is slated to rise in a mass of blindingly gold ornamentation and stately gray granite between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery — will be formally known as the United States Military Triumphal Arch.
Describing the arch as “an American vision finally realized,” the site offers bird's-eye views of the proposal from many angles and shows off the declarations it will feature: “One Nation Under God” on one side and “Golden Age of America” on another. It's also set to have towering gold doors complete with panels of sculptures at its base.
At its very top, the structure features a golden-hued cherub hoisting a flaming torch that recalls a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty.
The website does not say how much the project will cost or how it will be paid for, although some estimates have reached as high as $100 million.
The White House highlighted the website the morning after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits work on the site for 14 days. That order followed a vote to approve the arch by a federal planning commission that is stocked with Trump’s allies.
With Democrats taking control of Congress in January, Trump’s renovation projects will encounter far more scrutiny and roadblocks — from his effort to put his own name on the Kennedy Center to remaking a public golf course and building his massive White House ballroom and the arch.
The president on Monday focused his final remarks before the midterm elections talking up his costly and problem-plagued effort to overhaul the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool. The day after the losses, on Wednesday, he took reporters on a tour of the ballroom's construction site. And his first official action after his party lost control of Congress was to declare, on Thursday, that the Oval Office would become a national monument.
The arch website features the word “Triumph” in gold cursive script recalling the typeface used at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and similar flourishes that have been affixed to the White House as part of his overhaul of the Oval Office and West Wing.
The arch plans feature an event space in the horizontal part of the structure reached by elevators and stairs.
But inside its “massive columns will be storage for munitions,” the site states, as well as areas on the pedestal and observation deck that will be “set aside for snipers, countersnipers, and provisions for a sniper nest.”
An open ground area at the monument's base “will be designed for launching drones and other homeland security assets,” the site says, while also noting that the arch “will be Highly Secretive but, at the same time, a Top Level and Lethal structure, the likes of which has not been seen in this Country before.”
“It is long overdue, and has been sought for many years, especially by the Military,” it says.
Trump has said for months that the monument would be inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and that Washington has wanted a similar structure for centuries — even though that's not true. He previously joked that it might be called the “Arc de Trump.”
The website repeats Trump's inaccurate claims. It also features a picture of the president and quotes him as saying, “This will be the greatest and most beautiful triumphal arch, anywhere in the world.”
The Lincoln Memorial is seen as cars drive around Memorial Circle, the proposed site for a Triumphal Arch, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
The Lincoln Memorial is seen as cars drive around Memorial Circle, the proposed site for a Triumphal Arch, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump talks to reporters during a tour of White House Ballroom construction at the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV is kicking off a three-nation tour of Latin America on Friday with a visit to Uruguay, the region’s least Catholic and most secular country, three weeks after undergoing lung cancer surgery that had put the entire trip into question.
Leo is due to arrive in Montevideo after a 13½-hour flight from Rome. He has a packed three-day itinerary in Uruguay including a visit to a neighborhood plagued by gang violence, a Mass in Paysandú, around 375 kilometers (230 miles) from the capital, and another Mass in the city of Florida, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Montevideo.
The atmosphere at the airport before Leo’s arrival was calm and unhurried, much like the rest of Uruguay’s capital. Gradually, however, people began gathering at Plaza Independencia, one of the country’s most prominent public spaces and the site of Leo's first public event.
“It’s definitely a major event, which is great, even though I’m not a believer myself. It’s wonderful to see so many people coming together,” said musician Diego Vázquez, 28. “I think it’s a lovely initiative that has also put Uruguay, to some extent, in the eyes of the world.”
The Uruguay leg is the first stop on what will be the longest and farthest trip of his pontificate, all being undertaken as the 71-year-old pope continues his recovery. The trip will also bring him to neighboring Argentina and finally back home to Peru, where Leo served as a missionary priest and bishop for two decades.
“His stamina is fantastic. The way that he's singing is incredible. And you can only sing if your lungs are really strong,” said María Montserrat Alvarado, the Vatican's new communications chief. She noted that Leo has passed the 14-day convalescence period required by doctors after his Oct. 13 surgery and is eager to get on the road.
“His doctors are very confident and he'll have plenty of medical care on board should something happen, but we don't see that in his prognosis or even in the way that he's acting,” she said.
In Uruguay, which hasn’t had a papal visit since 1988, Leo is expected to try to remind the 3.5 million people of their strong Catholic heritage stemming from the times of Spanish colonial rule. He's likely to propose the faith anew as an answer to today’s challenges and problems.
Upon arrival, Leo will meet with President Yamandú Orsi, leader of the center-left alliance that assumed power in March 2025, and then deliver his welcome address to government officials and diplomats. He finishes the long day with a vespers service at the city's cathedral.
Leo will find in Uruguay a country unlike any other in Latin America, which is home to around 40% of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Uruguay is considered the most secular country in the region, where only a fraction of people who identify as Catholic actually go to Mass regularly.
Uruguay’s secularism has roots in the weakness of its colonial church. With no gold or silver to mine, Spain valued the land of cattle ranches mainly as a buffer against Portuguese Brazil and left it largely unsettled. Montevideo was founded only in the 1720s, roughly two centuries after Mexico City and Lima.
With few priests and no local bishop, the church never became the powerful institution it was elsewhere in the empire. “Uruguay was colonized late, and that made Catholicism weaker,” said Gerardo Caetano, a Uruguayan historian.
Montevideo awoke to its usual calm. Along the waterfront, joggers were out for their morning runs and residents walked their dogs along the very same promenade that the pope is set to visit just a few hours later.
“We still don’t understand why he chose Uruguay, given that it’s a secular country, but we hope he leaves something positive behind," said Mary Fernández while drinking mate, Uruguay's beloved beverage.
The origins of the separation between church and state can be traced back to the 19th century, particularly to the spread of liberal ideas promoted by European intellectuals, who viewed religion as a symptom of backwardness or a lack of rationality, said Luis Bahamondes, a professor at the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Chile.
“While Latin America also experienced a separation of church and state, the Catholic Church has nonetheless maintained strong ties with the various states in the region,” he said. “In this context, Uruguay stands out as a paradigmatic example of how secularism can be implemented.”
This process went so far as to include the renaming of certain holidays to reflect their secular character — such as “Family Day” and “Tourism Week” — signaling that the “inherent weight of Catholicism had no place within the State’s official framework,” Bahamondes added.
Since then, Uruguay has become the first country in the world to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the second country in Latin America to decriminalize abortion, and the third country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage.
More recently, it became the first country in the region to approve assisted dying legislation despite the strong opposition of the Catholic Church.
Uruguayan church officials have marveled at the apparent enthusiasm that the visit has provoked, with reports that tickets to Leo’s prayer vigil at Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium were snapped up after two days.
“It seems that the pope’s presence is shifting something here and is gradually breaking down this veil that has always sought to obscure and diminish the presence of the Catholic tradition that lies at the country’s foundation,” said Guzmán Carriquiry, the Uruguayan former head of the Vatican’s pontifical commission for Latin America.
Carriquiry said that he expects Leo will seek to revive the Catholic roots of Uruguay, especially when he travels to the city of Florida on Sunday to mark an important Catholic feast day.
The Nov. 8 feast commemorates the Virgin of the Thirty-three, a small wooden icon of the Virgin Mary that is intricately connected to Uruguay’s independence movement. According to tradition, 33 independence patriots acquired the Guaraní statue and had it with them when independence was declared from the Brazilian empire in Florida on Aug. 25, 1825.
“So the number 33 is an ecclesiastical symbol, a national symbol,” said Carriquiry. “And so the pope will speak there about the Catholic tradition that lies at the origin of Uruguay — that stems from Uruguay and gave rise to Uruguay — in order to revive and renew the Catholic tradition in the hearts of Uruguayans.”
Andrew Chesnut, chair of Catholic studies and an expert in the Latin American church at Virginia Commonwealth University, said that he wasn’t surprised that Leo’s visit had generated enthusiasm and that he will be welcomed warmly.
“But that’s not necessarily going to translate into folks in the pews,” he said. “If the overarching goal is trying to revitalize Catholicism in the most Catholic region on Earth, Uruguay is kind of a lost cause, and it has been for decades.”
Nayara Batschke contributed from Montevideo, Uruguay.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
This story has been corrected to show that the last name of the Vatican’s new communications chief is Alvarado, not Alvar.
People cheer as a statue of Pope Leo XIV is installed in 'El Niño' park in Callao, Peru, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, ahead of his planned trip to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru from November 6 to17. (AP Photo/Guadalupe Pardo)
A vendor sells scarves featuring Pope Leo XIV's image ahead of his arrival in Montevideo, Uruguay, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Pope Leo XIV departs from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Fiumicino, near Rome, for Montevideo, Uruguay, at the start of his twelve-day apostolic journey to South America, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Leo XIV departs from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Fiumicino, near Rome, for Montevideo, Uruguay, at the start of his twelve-day apostolic journey to South America, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Leo XIV appears at the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for the Angelus noon prayer on All Saints' Day, a feast celebrated across much of the Christian world, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV blesses a new born after his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Leo XIV celebrates a mass in memory of cardinals and bishops who died during the past year, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
A mototaxi pass drives past a banner of Pope Leo XIV at Pimentel beach in Chiclayo, Peru, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, ahead of his planned trip to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru from November 6 to 17. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
