President Donald Trump has been hit with several setbacks over his planned Washington, D.C., beautification initiative.
In particular, his attempt to modernize the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been a disaster so far.
The renovation transformed the National Mall attraction into an embarrassment for the Trump administration.
The Interior Department awarded multiple companies no-bid contracts worth more than $14 million to renovate the Reflecting Pool.
The taxpayer-funded changes include painting the pool’s floor “American flag blue” and installing a new recirculating water system.
Instead of improving the 2,030-by-167-foot pool, photos show algae blooms turning the water green. And the recently applied blue coating is peeling off the bottom.
Trump’s Reflecting Pool troubles have gone from humiliating international headlines to legislators calling out the president in the U.S. Congress.
Democratic lawmakers held a “shadow hearing” on July 21 to scrutinize funding for Trump’s “vanity projects” in Washington.
“We are experiencing unprecedented corruption in plain sight,” Norm Eisen, a former President Barack Obama White House ethics lawyer, stated in the hearing, per CBS News.
Eisen also represents David Hearn in the three-time U.S. Olympian’s federal destruction of property charges. Hearn was arrested after being accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool.
California Rep. Robert Garcia also delivered one of the hearing’s sharpest rebukes of Trump.
“Now there is currently a $14 million renovation underway that’s been plagued by algae and a bottom that’s chipping away and falling apart at the Reflecting Pool,” Garcia, 48, said.
He added, “It was built so incompetently that they’re trying to put an innocent man in jail to cover up their shoddy work, with contracts going to Donald Trump’s friends and donors. What a disgrace and completely shameful.”
As Garcia blasted Trump, his aide held up a poster showing the algae-filled Reflecting Pool behind him.
In response to the president calling the people who reached into the pool “vandals,” the congressman said Trump is the “biggest vandal in Washington, D.C.”
Garcia also targeted Trump’s proposed 250-foot Triumphal Arch, between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.
“When reporters asked who the arch was for, Trump said, quote, ‘Me.’ Garcia continued, saying, “This is a sad, pathetic, lonely man who’s trying to turn America’s monuments into monuments for himself.”
Many of Trump’s hardened critics praised Garcia for condemning the costly effort to remake Washington in his image.
His criticism of Trump’s Reflecting Pool fiasco quickly resonated with critics online.
“Well said!! He deserves [an] ovation,” an X user expressed.
One commenter tweeted, “Don’t hold anything back. Let it flow.” Another advised, “This is the fire that we need from Democrats 24/7. Never take your feet off their necks.”
“When Trump is gone, nobody will build monuments to Trump,” one poster predicted. “The monuments he erects will be a reminder of his failed presidency and [will] be laughed at for decades.”
Additionally, a tweet read, “Trump can and will never admit he screwed up anything that was his fault. The Buck stops at the Resolute Desk!”
Following the controversy sparked by Trump’s failed Reflecting Pool modifications, the federal government erected chain-link fences around the Washington landmark.
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The administration said it installed the barriers ahead of the July 4 Freedom 250 fireworks celebration.
Footage from the National Mall shows the fencing remained in place after Independence Day. More recently in the last week, black tarping was placed over the fence to block the Reflecting Pool from view.
Trump drew fresh ridicule this week after video showed the bottom of one tarp coming loose and flapping in the wind.
The Reflecting Pool is one of several high-profile Washington projects tied to Trump, including plans to replace the White House’s East Wing with a ballroom and pave over the Rose Garden for a patio.
