President Donald Trump has been posting controversial, and even offensive, AI-generated slop since retaking office 14 months ago, but critics say his latest stunt attempting to slam liberals didn’t land the way he expected and may go down as one of his most pathetic misfires yet.
Late Thursday afternoon, June 4, Trump was at it again, this time posting a bizarre video showing himself holding a hose and refilling the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall with the tears of a woman in glasses and a green jacket wearing a diving helmet and kneeling on the pavement next to him.
The helmet appears half full of water or tears as a smiling Trump sprays it into the pool.
The video seems to reference another one that went viral in 2017, showing a bespectacled woman in a green jacket crying and screaming “No” during Trump’s first inauguration.
Social media descended into a frenzy of furious comments slamming Trump’s video and the mentality behind posting something that critics call “disgusting.”
“I believe he is filling the pond with liberal tears. The butt of his joke this time is us. Three quarters of the American population,” Threads user Deb Boyle pointed out.
Others agreed. “This is honestly disgusting. He is literally bragging about filling the pool with Americans’ tears because we can’t afford gas at the pump to make him richer.”
This poster didn’t hold back. “Shows you what an immature man baby the U.S. has as POTUS. An international embarrassment. Impeach now! U.S. citizens are crying because of his high prices and incompetence, and he thinks it’s funny?”
Trump’s weird AI post followed one he sent earlier, seeming to suggest the $13.1 million repair project is complete.
“Our Great ‘Warriors’ who fixed and rebuilt the Reflecting Pool!” Trump crowed above a picture of workers at the pool holding an American flag.
Workers began filling up the more than 2,000-foot pool on Thursday, June 4, but the basin holds 6.5 million gallons of water, according to USA Today, so it will take time to refill it completely.
Trump announced a major renovation of the Reflecting Pool in April, including painting the basin bottom “American flag blue,” the Independent reported.
He said he got the idea to rehab the renowned landmark after a friend criticized its condition. Trump then spent weeks trashing his Democratic rivals, former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, even though Obama has been out of office for nearly 10 years, blaming them for the country’s condition.
In a swipe at Obama just a few days ago on Tuesday, June 2, Trump posted side-by-side photos of the pool, an edited one filled with algae and murky water labeled “HUSSEIN OBAMA” and the other showing bluish water with ducks swimming labeled “TRUMP.”
That post followed an interview on Fox News at the end of May, where Trump bragged about the repair project.
“It was a disaster. Built in 1922. President Obama spent 100 million dollars and destroyed it further, and then Biden got involved and spent a lot of money and destroyed it,” Trump falsely claimed.
“I’m gonna spend a tiny fraction of that money, and it should open in about a week. It was gonna take them four years to get it built, and it’s going to take me about four weeks,” he added.
The Associated Press fact-checked him, reporting that Obama’s restoration of the pool in 2012 cost $34 million and Biden did not do any major work on the iconic site.
The AP is also reporting that the cost of Trump’s repairs is closer to $15 million than the $13 million previously reported and that Trump awarded a $13 million no-bid federal project to his “pool guys.”
