Reflecting Pool Debacle Is a Shorthand for Trump’s Failing Second Term

There’s no question that the debacle surrounding President Donald Trump’s rehabbing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool doesn’t rise to the level of, say, his choice to wage war with Iran, his dumb and legally challenged imposition of tariffs, or his insistence on socializing businesses.

But it’s equally true that this fetid little episode, not yet fully resolved, provides a shorthand of everything cloudy and foul-smelling about his so-far terrible second term, especially his unwillingness to own his failures (such as admitting he lost the 2020 election). Jimmy Carter fought killer rabbits. Gerald Ford fell down staircases. And George H.W. Bush puked on foreign dignitaries. Trump is now fighting an algae bloom in such a way that he is becoming a laughingstock.

“You won’t be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!,” he declared triumphantly last fall on Truth Social when announcing plans for the job. It was supposed to cost just $1.5 million. This April, he bragged endlessly about his expertise in swimming pools, telling the media, “I’ve probably built more than 100 swimming pools….There’ll be no leaks; there’ll be no anything….It’ll look gorgeous, beautiful.” On June 3, he unveiled a bizarre, decidedly Freudian graphic comparing the length of the reflecting pool (2,030 feet) to the heights of the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and One World Trade Center. The chart was titled “Our Pool Is Bigger than Skyscrapers.”

However long the pool is, by the time the repairs were done, the Department of the Interior had signed two no-bid contracts worth over $16 million, or more than 10 times the initial estimate. Yet shortly after the work was completed and the pool refilled, the water was skunkified by an algae bloom, and the waterproofing, done in the president’s handpicked hue of “American Flag Blue,” started peeling up. On June 18, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reported on both the sickeningly green water and the sad state of the waterproofing.

Earlier this week, the president took to Truth Social to denounce “ABC FAKE NEWS” for failing “to report that their close ‘friends,’ Dumocrats [sic] Obama and Biden, spent over 100 Million Dollars on the Reflecting Pool, and it never worked.” He continued, “We are preparing lawsuits against ABC for false reporting. I like their money, which will be given to the U.S. Treasury! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT.”

According to CBS News, “President Trump is alleging, without proof, that vandals are to blame for recent issues at the Reflecting Pool in D.C. and says several people have been arrested.” Five people have been arrested and five issued citations in connection with the reflecting pool, but it’s not clear if and when those cases will be adjudicated. The U.S. Park Police has posted footage of what it says are vandals and is asking for help in identifying possible suspects. Oddly, the president himself swore to the press on May 22 that the material used to line the reflecting pool was so strong that “if you had a knife, you can’t even cut it.”

However any of this plays out, the president seems to be slumping with the public. His original much-ballyhooed Freedom 250 concert series and Great American State Fair was reorganized after eight of nine musical acts dropped out, though Trump tried to spin that as a victory, saying, “We don’t want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep — we’ve told them all to stay home…All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played, the same Music you have listened to for years! We will have the fabulous Lee Greenwood introducing me with what has turned out to be one of the Greatest Hits of All Time, ‘GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.'” The 16-day event started Wednesday night, with Trump averring, “A short time ago we were a dead country. We were dead. Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. We’re respected by everybody. Nobody’s laughing at us anymore.”

Well, maybe and maybe not. Per RealClearPolitics polling averages, Trump took office in January 2025 with a 50.5 percent approval rating. By March of that year, he was underwater, and his approval rating currently stands at 40.5 percent. Last month, inflation was 4.1 percent compared to the previous year, “the largest annual increase since April 2023.”

Trump loyalists will stand by their man, of course, and choke down his version of events, whether we’re talking about the terms of peace with Iran, inflation, the 2020 election, or the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. But eventually reality catches up to everyone, even Donald Trump.