U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House for Florida, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard
One of President Donald Trump's longtime biographers, Michael Wolff, is warning that the obsessive focus on the Reflecting Pool reveals something much deeper about the 80-year-old leader.
Speaking on the Daily Beast podcast, Wolff explained that, according to his sources, Trump is spending as much as 80 percent of his time on things like the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
Chatting with those he said are close to Trump, Wolff said that the Reflecting Pool failure is drawing "All of his anger, all of his rage, all of his demands — and now his need for vengeance: someone must be responsible."
The pool disaster has largely been a joke online, with mocking memes and comedy ranging from social media accounts championing the pool algae, along with "make algae great again" merchandise. For political analysts, it is described as a metaphor for Trump's entire presidency: big promises, overspending and, ultimately, a failure to deliver.
Trump is seeing it all as "an insult to the country and a challenge to him personally," Wolff said.
“The discussion that I’m having with people is that, you know, 60, 70, 80 percent of his time — and remember, he doesn’t work that much — is devoted to the Reflecting Pool,” Wolff explained.
“But he is focused on the Reflecting Pool,” Wolff told the Beast.
“Now we can obviously make a little nod here to Narcissus and his reflecting pool... It is, even for people who work with Donald Trump every day, a weird moment.”
Co-host Joanna Coles was curious whether the obsession stems from Trump's image of himself as a "builder."
Wolff questioned if it was “one of those dementia things.”
"I'm against diagnosing people," he explained. "But you know, Jesus, for anybody who has seen this before, and I have seen this before and so many people have."
"You close out the rest of the world and you just and you focus on these problems which are, which are really minor, and you turn them into obsessions.
"I mean, this clearly has become, in his mind, and hence in the White House, an obsession," he added. "What is the largest problem in the world today? It is apparently the Reflecting Pool."
"... I think he obviously has signs of dementia," Wolff corrected. "I'm just not comfortable with moving that to a diagnosis. I mean, you have that guy on 'Doctor John Gartner.' He says that because Trump's been in plain sight for so many years, you can actually diagnose the decline of his language, which is key to understanding someone's mental state. That's what all television doctors say."
Coles said that it's the first time she's heard Wolff acknowledge that Trump may have such a problem.
Wolff explained that what can be confirmed is that "something is unusual. Something is not as it should be. Something is weird. The president of the United States of America, in all kinds of crises, which again, larger and larger, has chosen for the past week and a half at least, to focus almost exclusively on the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. That's odd, is it?"