Donald Trump took a victory lap on his latest White House construction project. It lasted about as long as it took people to scroll down.
His attempt to put his stamp on Washington is becoming one giant headache between the Reflecting Pool and other landmarks.
On Tuesday, Aug. 18, the president posted two photos, revealing how the restoration of the Thomas Jefferson columns had turned out.
It’s another surface Trump has changed after cameras caught him staring at the same columns for six minutes during a tense exchange with Secret Service in May.
He lingered at the North Portico, ran his hand over the pillar’s stonework, then went inside the White House.
Scaffolding went up around the 200-year-old Ionic columns on June 30. An official called it standard restoration for stone repair.
Trump called it a bigger issue, claiming crews stripped 150 years of paint, that the columns were in very bad shape, and that previous presidents had treated them badly.
New photos show a National Park Service worker kneeling beside a renovated white column with blue tape and trim scattered around him.
The worker knelt on glossy black stone, drawing attention to the floor.
The president had already called the front of the building deplorable and an embarrassment. Newsweek then pulled archival photographs showing the column bases have been patched, resurfaced and altered repeatedly across two centuries.
This meant the emergency Trump described looks a lot like ordinary maintenance every administration has handled without a press release.
The replies had nothing to do with architecture, as many predict the same results as his Reflecting Pool.
“How long before that peels?” one X user asked. Another sighed, asking, “Did his pool man do the work?”
Others weren’t impressed by the workmanship either. “Can you imagine the fear of the poor craftsman doing this work,” one wrote, saying it didn’t look like crews sanded anything before slapping on primer and paint.
One observer who zoomed in for a closer look noted, “Come on man! That is rough as a cob!!! It doesn’t look like they even sanded them before they slapped on some primer and paint Seriously, I do a better job on my ordinary home renos.”
Meanwhile, someone looked at the floor. A few critics identified the terrace flooring as polished black granite. Many described it as a dangerous and slippery addition that could send someone to the hospital. One person called it a “MAJOR slip hazard, which is why no reputable design professional would ever allow it.”
“More of that slippery smooth granite, that people will be wiping out on when it rains,” said one person.
But the White House hasn’t said which finish workers used on the portico, raising a question Trump himself made relevant.
Come on man!
— Tamsyn Donner (@teresas30569940) August 19, 2026
That is rough as a cob!!!
It doesn’t look like they even sanded them before they slapped on some primer and paint
Seriously, I do a better job on my ordinary home renos pic.twitter.com/aKQK2FR6tw
In March, the administration announced plans to rip out Tennessee flagstone pavers that had lined the West Colonnade for six decades and to replace them with black granite, as The New York Post first reported.
Weeks later, Trump said workers polished the stone where people don’t walk and flame-finished it where they do to prevent slips.
He raised it because falling is on his mind. Days earlier, he’d told CNBC he moves slowly off planes because a trip would become the biggest story in the country.
The granite keeps spreading, too. Crews recently finished the presidential seal on a black granite helipad at the White House, with a matching one at Mar-a-Lago.
A new black granite $5 to $6 million helipad featuring a carved presidential seal is currently under construction on the White House South Lawn. Contractors have removed the granite seal after Trump complained about the slope of the White House lawn. pic.twitter.com/mwYaaY9dSY
— Terry Jepson (@terry_jepson) August 5, 2026
Trump gilded the Oval Office, paved over much of the Rose Garden, demolished the East Wing for a $400 million ballroom, added a “Presidential Walk of Fame” and pushed a Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation that is already peeling, with dead grass still visible across parts of the National Mall.
Scrutiny of what he’s hiding has sharpened alongside it. Only last week, an aide was caught scrambling to block a camera during his entrance.
That’s the problem with a victory lap: you announce yourself. Trump told everyone where to look. They looked down instead.
