One of President Donald Trump’s precious vanity projects has become one of his biggest public relations blunders.
Trump, 80, turned his plans to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool into a major negative news story over the past several weeks.
What started as a paint job for the popular tourist attraction in Washington, D.C., quickly became a disaster.
The Trump administration reportedly gave a $14 million no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings to paint the floor of the Reflecting Pool a color called “American flag blue.”
Plus, officials paid Green Water Solutions $1.74 million to install a new algae-killing cleaning system in the 2,030-foot-by-167-foot water basin.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings previously worked on swimming pools at Trump’s golf club in Virginia. John J. Cafaro owns Green Water Solutions, a longtime Trump donor.
Video of workers pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool and images of a dead duckling floating in the water went viral this month, intensifying the drama surrounding the site.
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Trump making his Washington beautification initiative such a priority at several press conferences opened the door for critics to slam him over the fallout from his makeover attempt.
Apparently, the critiques did not sit well with the president. Trump’s Department of the Interior began placing fencing around the Reflecting Pool on June 23.
An Interior Department spokesperson told People, “We always planned to fence off the Reflecting Pool ahead of the 4th of July.”
The statement continued, “As in years prior, crews set up one of the fireworks launch pads around the pool, so we put up fencing to ensure public safety.”
Additionally, the Interior Department repeated an unproven allegation that “leftist activists” caused damages at the location, echoing a narrative the president has been pushing in recent days.
Trump even claimed on Truth Social that authorities have arrested six people and cited seven others “for the damage they did to our Country’s now beautiful Reflecting Pool.”
The administration blaming their left-leaning political opponents for the Reflecting Pool fiasco will likely be a tough sell because Trump’s other intended DC remodeling has also fizzled.
Trump destroyed the White House’s East Wing to build a $600 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom. So far, the construction site remains an eyesore as a legal battle rages on.
In 2025, Trump added his name to the John F. Kennedy Center building, but a judge had the lettering outside the venue changed back to only representing the late 35th POTUS.
Crews restored the original signage at the Kennedy Center, but critics accused Trump of defying the court order by placing a tarp in front of the performing arts hall to block public viewing.
With the White House ballroom and the Kennedy Center duds hanging over the president’s head, the Reflecting Pool ordeal is another setback that igniting criticism directed his way.
“I thought this was a joke, but others were right. Trump is just going to start covering all his failures with tarps. Trump is America’s first white trash president,” read one reaction on X.
A second person wondered, “How much are we taxpayers paying to coddle one old man’s ego?” Similarly, someone asked, “Is the fencing supplied by another Trump buddy or company?”
“This isn’t to protect the pool from vandals. It’s to eventually protect the peeling paint from eyeballs and cameras when they drain it and fix it,” someone on X theorized.
One jokester blasted Trump by tweeting, “This man is losing a war against a pool.” A more angered commenter declared, “Trump doesn’t give a f–k about Americans.”
“This is emblematic of Trump taking over OUR government monuments like he owns them. He does NOT own them. His destruction of them should result in his arrest. And, repairs of them out of his personal pocketbook,” demanded a poster.
Yet another Trump detractor wrote, “So pathetic, when all he had to do is drain the damn thing, fix the filtration system, and paint it a color that won’t reflect the sun.”
The embarrassing Reflecting Pool situation has grown from the president’s failed effort to further stamp his personal style on the nation’s capital into a PR nightmare for the administration.
Going by his track record, erecting fencing on the National Mall will not be Trump’s final move in masking the humiliation of seeing another pet project become a national punchline.
