Inside Trump's $14 million failure — and the people he's arresting to cover it up

President Donald Trump is arresting people for supposedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, despite lacking any evidence, and ignoring the signs that it has turned algae green with peeling blue paint because of his own incompetence.

For doing these things, he is being roundly mocked on social media.

"Reflecting Pool story: Under Obama, responsible people carefully studied the problem, sought best solutions - and failed,” posted conservative journalist David Frum on Sunday. “Under Trump, irresponsible people imposed a hasty solution that enriched inept cronies - and failed even more spectacularly."

A prominent former government official also claimed that Trump has failed to fix the Reflecting Pool and is instead falsely blaming other people to deflect heat from himself.

"Like most things Trump touches, the Reflecting Pool is now in worse shape than before,” former US Attorney Barbara McQuade said on X on Sunday. “Adding cosmetic paint did not solve the underlying problem. And now he baselessly blames vandals for his failure."

A social media influencer named Jo (JoJoFromJerz), who has 1 million followers on X, received a lot of responses when she pointed out a double standard in Trump’s approach to criminal prosecution.

"If you beat the police during the insurrection Trump incited, you get a pardon,” Jo wrote. “But if you touch the peeling reflecting pool paint he created, you get arrested."

Another prominent social media personality, liberal commentator Harry Sisson, also observed that "Trump is treating people around the reflecting pool worse than the January 6th insurrectionists and that is terrifying."

Meanwhile Democratic strategist Christopher Webb denounced conservative media outlets like Fox News for going along with Trump’s inaccurate claims that the pool was vandalized.

"SHAME ON FOX, OR ANY NEWS OUTLET, FOR HEADLINES LIKE THIS,” Webb posted on X. “Everyone with eyes knows the Reflecting Pool wasn't vandalized, and every reporter knows it too. 📌 Former Olympian David Hearn was handcuffed after he picked up a section of the pool liner that was already peeling away. He says he didn't vandalize anything."

As Webb noted, the Trump administration targeted three-time Olympics canoeist David Carter Hearn, 67, as one of the so-called vandals of the Reflecting Pool. Trump’s $14 million-plus renovation project on the Reflecting Pool has been so unsuccessful, he has begun plans to partly drain the pool for “necessary repairs.”

“I was just a curious, concerned citizen,” Hearn explained regarding his own arrest. “I guess I was there at the wrong place, wrong time.” Trump said on Saturday that vandals “poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool,” even though he has no evidence of this.