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Trump Participates in New Flagpole Installation on the South Lawn, June 18, 2025

June 18, 2025 · The White House · 0:46:33

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump joined the work crew installing a new flagpole on the South Lawn of the White House on June 18, 2025, carried in full on the White House channel. “The White House opened about 1800, a little before that, just a tad. And I’ve always said, why doesn’t it have a flagpole through the grass? They got a flagpole from the — they have a little one on top, a very little one. This is about the largest you’ll ever see,” he said, describing the tapered pole and the crew raising it, and noting an identical pole would go on the north side: “So, we’ll have one on this side of the building. We’ll have one on that side of the building properly placed.”

Speaking with reporters during the installation, the President turned to the Federal Reserve and trade: “We’re doing well as a country. If the Fed would ever lower rates, you know, we’d buy debt for a lot less,” he said, and cited the tariff receipts as he stated them: “Eighty-eight billion dollars came in from tariffs. No inflation,” adding that Europe had cut rates ten times while the Fed had not, as he stated the comparison.

Why it matters

The flagpole installation is the visible start of the President’s White House grounds projects — two presidentially funded poles, in his telling — and the unscripted remarks wrapped around the work carry his standing case against the Fed’s rate path and for the tariff program, in his own words on the record.

Scoreboard watch

This event is a scoreboard reference point: the President’s June 18, 2025 statement of $88 billion in tariff revenue over two months with no inflation, as stated by the President, to be checked against the Treasury and price data.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in New Flagpole Installation on South Lawn” (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President.