Topline<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump said the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was in \u201cfull use\u201d after being damaged from alleged vandalism, simultaneously announcing extensive renovations to Washington, D.C.\u2019s East Potomac Golf Links public course would begin in September in a lengthy post on Truth Social<\/a>\u2014after he toured<\/a> sites<\/a> of his renovations around the capital, including the newly refurbished Lafayette Square.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump tours East Potomac Golf Links on Sunday.<\/p>\n Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n The president repeated his claims<\/a> that the pool was damaged by vandals who \u201ccut and butchered a 350 foot long strip\u201d in the basin that was previously \u201c100% free of leaks.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump confirmed the government planned to drain the pool after Independence Day, but claimed it is currently \u201cworking well\u201d and\u201cthe criminally made algae is gone\u201d\u2014repeating a strange claim about vandals causing an algae bloom.<\/p>\n He also visited Lafayette Square, the park just north of the White House that was closed for renovations, insisting improvements to the park were almost complete.<\/p>\n He inspected the East Potomac Golf Links, one of D.C.\u2019s public municipal golf courses, which he lambasted as \u201cbadly damaged from years of neglect\u201d with greens that are \u201cvirtually unplayable.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump was seen touring the course, located at East Potomac Park, with golf course architect Tom Fazio, and claimed the renovated course would be challenging enough to host the U.S. Open and other golf tournaments.<\/p>\n Trump continued his fixation on D.C. Sunday afternoon, posting renderings<\/a> of his ballrooms and a separate screed denouncing<\/a> Democratic mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George as a \u201ccommunist.\u201d <\/p>\n Surprising Fact<\/p>\n A New York Times<\/a> review of the proposed East Potomac Golf Links project published on Friday found the new plans would add about 1,000 yards to the main course and demolish a nine-hole course on the grounds. This would likely increase the course\u2019s difficulty, extending the yardage on even the course\u2019s short tees.<\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n In May, the Trump administration reached a deal<\/a> with the National Links Trust, the nonprofit organization that operates D.C.\u2019s municipal golf courses, to renovate East Potomac and two other city golf courses. The deal<\/a> would let the Trust continue operating East Potomac until the \u201cthe National Park Service is ready to commence a historic restoration there.\u201d However, the D.C. Preservation League filed a lawsuit<\/a> to try to block the renovations months earlier, attempting to block further changes after the Trump administration began dumping old material from the recently torn-down<\/a> White House East Wing at the course. A later report found the material tested positive<\/a> for elevated levels of lead and chromium, among other toxic metals. In May, a federal judge warned<\/a> the Trump administration to stop planned renovations on the course without properly notifying the court. \u201cLet\u2019s just say, given some issues around the District recently, I would have a particular concern that we not act first and ask forgiveness later,\u201d U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes said, warning of \u201cserious consequences\u201d if the government failed to comply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline President Donald Trump said the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was in \u201cfull use\u201d after being damaged from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":899514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[69,162759,51,360177,50,345381,52,22661],"class_list":["post-899513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-east-potomac-golf-links","tag-headlines","tag-lafayette-square","tag-news","tag-reflecting-pool","tag-top-stories","tag-washington-d-c"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116830226766269647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}