Capitol Dome Tour Highlights

I've only been up here three times in all the time I've been up in,

in Congress. So, uh, this isn't something I do very often.

All right, guys, we're about ready to do this dome tour

that you guys asked me to

do. Now, this is typically like a 30-minute walk to

45-minute walk because

the time for the votes. I take your challenge.

I can get this done between the votes.

From the Rotunda to where we're going is 314 steps.

Stairs?

Stairs.

So this is the guy who's over all the Capitol Complex,

who's taken time this evening to actually give us this tour, so thank you so much.

He's the original AOC. So the AOC is the

Architect of the Capitol. They're responsible for all of our

buildings.

How many buildings do you take care of?

36 major buildings. We have a 570 acres of grounds,

and we have

18.5 million gross square feet of office buildings.

We need to put a mic on you.

There's been three roofs on the Capitol over the years, including two domes.

One dome was finished in the 1820s and was replaced in the 1850s and the early

1860s when they put the extensions on the north and south sides of the Capitol.

The dome that you see here, the cast iron dome,

was built in the 1850s and '60s.

So are you gonna get a, put a dome over it?

Holy cow. God.

From here you can see into the Rotunda.

Was Quartermaster General of the Union Army.

He put his name on a lot of these architectural features,

including right here

where it says MC Meigs. So he was a s- shameless self-promoter, and that was-

How old, how old is that?

That is 18- late 1850s. With his name,

showing that he was the chief engineer, so in case that area ever became

an archeological site, he would get credit.

Sounds like he should've ran for office.

Well, I'm going to, uh, try to talk without

breathing too hard. Evidently I need to do t- more cardio

and less weights.

I've talked about the drawings the circumference this covers,

and that each one of these, the figures are painted on basically

12-foot frames,

and it's just, I mean, it's massive.

Overall, it's about 4,600 square feet of painting.

For a point of reference, the Sistine Chapel roof

is about 12,000 square feet, so

we're about 40% of the Sistine Chapel.

Wow.

I actually said that.

It's more strenuous going up, but it's more dangerous going down.

All right, we're going outside. We've made it to the top.

You want me to shout Lady Freedom?

Lady Freedom.

Oh, it's raining a little bit.

You can't quite see her because we're too far underneath her, but she's right up

there. She's lit up.

If you see Lady Freedom lit up at night, that means that Congress is currently in

session. It can be either chamber. It can be the Senate or the House.

It was originally done so that the housewives would know

that their husbands are

gonna be coming in late at night, so they're not holding dinner.

Seriously?

And the AOC's been maintaining it since the 1860s.

I had... See, I didn't know that.

So we have the Rayburn House Office Building, Longworth, Cannon.

South Egg, North Egg.

Yeah, so to just give you an idea, that's the Senate chamber down there,

so...

And by the way, I'm not sweating. It's raining.

That's why my forehead is dripping with rain, not sweat.

Lightning. That's great to be up here.

If you haven't seen the Washington Mall like this,

this is really cool.

This is the best view in Washington, DC.

Yeah.

Please tell me you got that on video.

Oh, hell.

You remember when I said-

Oh, yeah. I'm going

... if you ever go too far, I'll let you know. That was too far,

Mark Wayne.

That was funny.

You gotta see the fear in his face.

It wasn't in-

And it wasn't actually finished until 1950- something.

So it was almost, it was 90 years.

Well, they had two different... There was one period where he, he stopped, then

another guy came in the 1870s, and then it sat unfinished

for a long, long time.

Tom, we are,

we, we, that was record timing.

That was.

That was re- we d- made it quick. Thank you for your time.

We're in the middle of the evening, nighttime, and Tom took

time to come do it. We made the request late,

and he made it happen for us,

so we can't thank him enough. Make sure you give him a shout-out on

social media.

Appreciate it again. All right.