On Monday, President Donald Trump reminded Americans about the disaster he created in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, announcing that the pool has once again been drained so that the incompetent boobs he gave a corrupt no-bid contract to can fix the shitty job they did in the first place.
Of course, Trump didn’t say that it was the comically corrupt company he hired to do the work whose fault it was that the “American Flag Blue” paint peeled off within days of its completion. Nor did he take responsibility for coming up with a plan that experts said would not only not solve the pool’s algae problem, but make it worse, as painting the surface a darker color would create hotter water which algae thrives in.
Instead, he crafted yet more absurd lies about the damage to the pool to absolve himself of any responsibility in wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on vanity projects that have done more to deface the nation’s capital than improve it.
Cartoon by Nick AndersonNick Anderson
“We drained the beautiful ‘Reflecting Pool’ today in order to fix the scars and damage that was done by the Vandals two weeks ago,” Trump wrote Monday evening in a post on Truth Social. “We wanted to wait until after the July 4th Weekend. The slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs. The Parks Department had to empty the water in order to fix the water tight basin. It will be refilled and put back into service soon. These Country hating sleazebags should pay a big price for the damage done.”
Where to even begin on this absurdity …
First, Trump is now claiming the nonexistent “slashes” in the newly resurfaced pool are 300 yards long. It’s unclear if Trump knows what a yard is, as 300 yards is a whopping 900 feet—nearly half the length of the entire 2,028-foot pool.
Initially, Trump said the pool was vandalized with a “300-foot slit.” That then rose to a 350-foot gash, before Trump claimed on Monday that the cut is now 900 feet long.
Related | Trump’s incompetent pool guy is set to reap more taxpayer money
To put into perspective how large that is, Trump actually had the gall to say that vandals cut a gash that’s two-and-a-half football fields long into the pool’s surface and then personally “pulled upward, with great force” to get it to peel.
Truly only an absolute moron could believe that “vandals” successfully waded into the reflecting pool’s water in one of the most heavily trafficked areas of the city, cut that long a gash into the pool’s coating, and then pulled it up, all without being caught.
What’s more, there is no evidence of such a slit in the first place.
The Reflecting Pool is empty now and there is no 300 yard long gash that’s been peeled up. That line running down the middle is for drainage and was there before pic.twitter.com/Z6VXQ7HuSf
— Joe Flood (@joeflood) July 14, 2026
At the end of the day, whether the reflecting pool had algae in it is not something that kept average Americans up at night. Americans are begging Trump to focus on what matters, which is implementing policies that lower the cost of living and make life in the United States more affordable.
Instead what they’re getting is a president obsessed with spending taxpayer dollars on vainglorious and tacky “renovations” around Washington, D.C., as well as a war in Iran that is spiking prices and making life more expensive.
We’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.
We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.
Power matters.