President Donald Trump is furious over how the media is covering his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a project he has repeatedly promoted as workers begin refilling the famous National Mall landmark.
The 79-year-old president has spent weeks talking about the renovation, even as his administration faces major issues at home and abroad, including the ongoing war in Iran and Americans continuing to struggle with high costs.
This week, Trump showed off the project multiple times. He displayed a poster comparing the size of the Reflecting Pool to skyscrapers, held up printed photos of the pool during an unrelated Oval Office event, and even had a staffer pull up a video of the pool being refilled on a laptop in front of reporters Thursday.
Trump praised the “clean, beautiful water” as the pool slowly began filling again.
But by Friday, the president was venting on Truth Social over reports that described the renovation as a paint job.
“The Great Reflecting Pool, that stretches between The Lincoln Memorial and The Washington Monument, just opened to ‘rave reviews’ but, maliciously or not, some say, like The Washington Post, it was a ‘paint job.’ This was not a paint job,” Trump wrote.
He insisted the work involved more than simple paint and praised the material used at the bottom of the pool.
“This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years, applied by very talented people, many of whom came from the Great State of Oklahoma, where I won 77 out of 77 Counties, THREE TIMES, the only President to ever do so,” Trump continued.
He then described the coating as “thick, strong, flexible” and said it had “a natural, beautiful color, the dark blue of the American Flag.”
The Reflecting Pool has had leak problems for decades, and Trump has made fixing it one of his highly publicized beautification projects.
Workers spent weeks applying a dark blue coating to the bottom of the pool before beginning the refilling process Thursday.
During his Oval Office remarks, Trump acknowledged that the pool could leak, but then insisted it would not because crews had resealed the gaps at the bottom.
The Trump administration has already pushed back hard on media coverage of the project. Last week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum criticized a New York Times report that said previous tests meant to check whether the pool was still leaking had failed.
That report, based on internal documents, said it was unclear at the time whether the Interior Department had solved the issue.
Burgum responded with a long series of posts accusing the outlet of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and insisting the problem had been fixed.
The administration had said in court filings that the Reflecting Pool would begin being refilled no later than Sunday. On Thursday, construction materials and workers’ vehicles could still be seen inside the pool as water slowly began pouring in.
Trump first announced the renovation in April during an Oval Office appearance. At the time, he suggested the work would cost between $1.5 million and $2 million.
Records later showed the contract cost had climbed to more than $14 million.
On Thursday, Trump also floated another idea for the Lincoln Memorial area. He said he wanted to build a promenade behind the memorial that would extend down to the Potomac River.
The Reflecting Pool renovation is the latest project Trump has publicly praised at length, even as critics argue the president is spending time promoting cosmetic upgrades while larger domestic and foreign policy problems continue to dominate headlines.
For Trump, however, the pool appears to have become a point of pride.
Discover more from Next Gen News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.