{"id":715793,"date":"2026-06-20T16:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715793\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T16:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:24:07","slug":"trump-acknowledges-real-problems-at-reflecting-pool-after-14m-makeover-blaming-vandalism-washington-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715793\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump acknowledges \u2018real problems\u2019 at reflecting pool after $14m makeover, blaming \u2018vandalism\u2019 | Washington DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> has blamed \u201cvandalism\u201d for \u201creal problems\u201d at Washington\u2019s reflecting pool after an algae bloom in the wake of a $14.2m renovation of the site he declared would turn it \u201cAmerican flag\u201d blue. Paint has also been seen peeling off in the water.<\/p>\n

Days after his administration claimed the pool was actually \u201ccrystal clear\u201d, despite an unmistakably green hue, the US president acknowledged issues \u2013 and, without evidence, blamed foul play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve cleaned, renovated, and beautified over 45 Monuments and Memorials, 28 Statues, and 22 Fountains in Washington, DC,\u201d Trump wrote in a lengthy post <\/a>on his Truth Social platform on Friday night. \u201cHowever, we\u2019ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool, which sits between The Washington Monument and The Lincoln Memorial.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Trump noted that \u201c86 47\u201d was recently etched onto a vast patch of grass<\/a> nearby \u2013 \u201c86\u201d is frequently used across the restaurant industry to mean \u201cstop\u201d or to get rid of something, while Trump is the 47th president of the US \u2013 and claimed some people had \u201calso done everything possible to hurt the inside surface\u201d of the pool painted as part of the recent renovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,\u201d Trump alleged, again without evidence.<\/p>\n

Trump also claimed in his post that the algae problem was largely under control, suggesting it was \u201c75% gone\u201d and the issue would soon be \u201ccompletely remedied\u201d.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement is \u201cactively investigating this situation\u201d, he claimed, and \u201cwill hopefully have it resolved soon\u201d. The Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Trump\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

Paint peels from the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on 19 June 2026. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Trump ordered a refurbishment project to turn the pool \u201cAmerican Flag blue\u201d ahead of the country\u2019s 250th birthday celebrations. The site \u2013 one of Washington DC\u2019s most historically symbolic attractions \u2013 has been one element of his efforts to recondition Washington during his second term.<\/p>\n

Just days after the renovation was finished<\/a>, however, an algae bloom turned the water green<\/a>. In response, National Park Service employees were deployed and seen using skimmers and adding hydrogen peroxide to the water in an attempt to restore the water quality.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> on social media on Wednesday, the interior department declared that \u201cadvanced nanobubbler technology\u201d had \u201cvery effectively killed the algae\u201d, adding: \u201cOur National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool \u2013 just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, however, much of the water remained murky later in the week, with algae still visible in some areas, and large flakes of paint peeling from the basin and floating on the surface.<\/p>\n

News crews report as National Park Service workers clean algae from the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on 19 June 2026. Photograph: Andrew Thomas\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The Atlantic reported this weekend that laboratory testing<\/a> it commissioned identified algae in the pool as Scenedesmus, a genus of green algae.<\/p>\n

The project has also come under scrutiny over its contracting process. The New York Times reported<\/a> that the Trump administration had awarded a no-bid contract to a business tied to a longtime supporter of the president to install the water-purification system in the pool.<\/p>\n

Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who ran against Trump and JD Vance as the running mate of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, wrote<\/a> on X, formerly Twitter: \u201cFound an imaginary problem, said only they could fix it, didn\u2019t listen to experts, hired buddies who grifted millions, failed miserably, bragged how great it went. The entire Trump presidency in a nutshell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has blamed \u201cvandalism\u201d for \u201creal problems\u201d at Washington\u2019s reflecting pool after an algae bloom in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-715793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}