I know that most journalists would defend this Haberman special as obviously highlighting the absurdity of Trump's obsession with his little building projects, but readers shouldn't need a decoder ring for this stuff.
As the war with Iran grinds on, Mr. Trump finds reprieve by focusing on the minutia of an endeavor much more within his grasp: renovating Washington with ornate projects.“He loves to build,” Mr. Lutnick said, shortly before an emergency hearing about Mr. Trump’s desire to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in his own honor. Mr. Lutnick added: “This is what he enjoys. So late at night, 11 o’clock at night, he calls me and wants to talk about things he’s building, because it’s fun for him.”“If you sat with him, would you have a nice chat with him? No, you’d ask him about Iran, then you’d ask him about this, then you’d ask him about that,” he noted. “Everybody does that. And the one thing he likes to do during the week is construction.”
Writing it up as a piece about his charming eccentricities is a choice. There are other ways to write it.