[Verse 1]
Secret Service handed in a blueprint for the gates
Fencing off the public squares, controlling who participates
The front door getting fortified, a heavier entrance now
Construction crews and columns rising — nobody saying how
Jackie Kennedy would barely recognize the halls
Gold and gaudy renovations climbing up the walls
Chronicles are writing what she might have said today
About the décor shifting in a very different way
[Chorus]
White House in the headlines, changes wrapped in stone
Columns, fences, heavy doors — remodeling the throne
Every update, every project, every secret plan
Reshaping Pennsylvania Avenue the best they can
July eleventh, read between the bricks and steel
Washington is shifting — this is what the papers reveal
[Verse 2]
PBS was watching when the columns took new shape
Another project surfacing, another grand escape
Forbes confirmed the Secret Service drove the whole request
Security or spectacle — reporters left to second-guess
Meanwhile deeper in the briefing rooms a warning spread
Researchers and experts watching something else with dread
A proposal on the table that would hollow out the labs
Dramatically weakening American research — scientists grabbing tabs
[Chorus]
White House in the headlines, changes wrapped in stone
Columns, fences, heavy doors — remodeling the throne
Every update, every project, every secret plan
Reshaping Pennsylvania Avenue the best they can
July eleventh, read between the bricks and steel
Washington is shifting — this is what the papers reveal
[Verse 3]
The budget hawks are circling above the funding floor
Cutting grants and programs — scientists demanding more
Universities releasing statements, drawing lines in sand
Decades worth of progress slipping right out of their hands
From cancer research corridors to climate data rooms
The ripple of a single memo casting lasting dooms
Advocacy groups are marching, petitions on the rise
Democracy is loudest when it opens up its eyes
[Bridge]
And over at the UFC, a darker story broke
Suspects in a murder plot — no metaphor, no smoke
Indicted on both terror charges and on murder too
A planned attack on Trump's event — now the courts push through
Three different threads, one single date, the capital awake
Construction noise and courtroom files and policies at stake
[Chorus]
White House in the headlines, changes wrapped in stone
Columns, fences, heavy doors — remodeling the throne
Every update, every project, every secret plan
Reshaping Pennsylvania Avenue the best they can
July eleventh, read between the bricks and steel
Washington is shifting — this is what the papers reveal
[Outro]
That's July eleventh, twenty-twenty-six today
White House walls and warning calls and justice on display
NBC keeps rolling footage — updates never cease
Washington keeps moving — filing headline after piece