CNN supercut lays bare Trump’s embarrassing boasts about his doomed Reflecting Pool
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U.S. National Park Service employee works to remove algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer
CNN on Monday played a supercut of some of President Donald Trump's big promises about the Reflecting Pool as a panel of analysts ridiculed the president's results.
Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday morning: "Of the MANY Statues and Fountains that we rebuilt, renovated, cleaned, and fixed, the only one that was Vandalized was the Reflecting Pool, which is being taken care of, ASAP! It has been given a 300 foot long gash, chemicals have been illegally placed in the water..."
Referring to it as a "mismanagement" of the project, CNN host Dana Bash introduced "a combination of conversations that the president has had, kind of with himself, but cameras were there about the Reflecting Pool from May 4th until June 10th, during which most of these events were about other things."
The supercut included Trump's promise of something so "beautiful" that "you could never get any anything like that." He also pledged on May 7 that he would do the project for $1.8 million and it would be finished in a week.
"It's going to be something very special," Trump promised later in those remarks.
Trump told his daughter-in-law that he was using "Swimming pool material" to make it "blue, beautiful blue, which is what they always wanted."
By June 10 Trump was bragging that people "can't believe it" and "everybody's looking at that reflecting pool."
Reporter Manu Raju explained that this is one of many reasons that the disaster is such a huge embarrassment for Trump.
"Because he has boasted about this so much. He could have been you know — it's a noteworthy goal to say, okay, I want D.C. to have improvements, look beautiful, et cetera," Raju said.
The costs continue to climb as problems persist ahead of the July 4th event.
Raju recalled that the fix "went to a no-bid contract to someone who's close to the to the president or the president's team. So, a lot of questions about how all that played out. It clearly is not American flag blue, which is why he's now saying vandals and many people arrested when it seems like there are cameras all over D.C., they could release some of this video footage that exists."