Donald Trump’s $16.4 million Reflecting Pool liner is peeling up like a sunburned sophomore on a Cabo spring break, but the president wants the nation to believe it was sabotage.
Trump’s claims that the Reflecting Pool’s issues were caused by a vandal who managed to slash a supposed gash the length of a football field into the pool without being seen by a single tourist or law-enforcement officer is absurd on its face. Despite dozens of reporters, influencers, and thousands of tourists venturing to the Reflecting Pool in the past days to check out the algae-infested, sloughing mess in front of the Lincoln Memorial, not a single person has managed to document evidence of this, nor has Trump or the White House been able to provide any. Now, to no one’s surprise, new documents obtained by The New York Times confirm that the White House’ claims of vandalism causing the Reflecting Pool’s sealant to peel up and water to turn green are what we all knew them to be: bullshit.
The documents, which came from the National Parks Service, show that virtually immediately after the pool was refilled following the installation of Trump’s “American Flag Blue” epoxy lining, issues began to arise. Maintenance workers discovered cuts in the specialized foam that fills expansion joints between the concrete slabs of the pool, peeling caulking, and other holes and cracks. The documents describe the slashes in the foam as two cuts, each approximately 171 feet long. These are perhaps the cuts that Trump is referring to, but the documents obtained by the Times make clear that the issues with the foam are unrelated to the peeling of the coating Trump had installed.
At least six individuals have been arrested for supposedly “vandalizing” the Reflecting Pool and its lining, but all available evidence of the arrests — including videos of several of the detentions — show law enforcement detaining what seem to be mostly curious tourists reaching down to touch the water or the slabs of plastic that are floating to the pool’s surface.
On Truth Social, Trump claimed that the algae bloom had been caused by the illegal addition of chemicals to the water, and wrote that “there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things — Which will be fully enforced!” Trump continued his dayslong posting spree about supposed vandalism on Wednesday. “This is the hard rubber surface — No Paint — Before the vandals cut and pulled it apart!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, along with a picture of the coating. (Again, there is absolutely no evidence that vandals cut the surface of the pool.)
But while Americans are being arrested for interacting with the fetid water, some of D.C.’s most-beloved residents are losing their lives. At least three ducks, mainstays and permanent residents on the National Mall, have been discovered dead in or around the Reflecting Pool. The deceased ducks are undergoing necropsies as part of an investigation by the Washington, D.C., Department of Energy & Environment to determine if their deaths were related to the algae, chemicals, or plastic mixing into a noxious stew within the Reflecting Pool.
Things have gotten so bad that within weeks of the supposed project’s completion, the pool is being drained again in order to do another round of repairs. Trump has been spending lavishly to theoretically spruce up the nation’s capital in anticipation of the 250th-anniversary celebration, but with an empty pool, ruined lawns in front of the White House, and a massive construction pit where the East Wing used to stand, Trump’s D.C. is looking pretty decrepit.
