U.S. President Donald Trump shows a cardboard with illustration of the Lincoln Reflecting Pool in comparison with skyscrapers as he delivers remarks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 4, 2026.
In recent months, President Donald Trump’s endeavor to clean the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has taken on an episodic quality as the project has raised controversy and encountered mounting problems. Now, a new odorous issue has been reported.
“As they drain it,” noted Joe Flood, “the Reflecting Pool is starting to smell.”
Over the weekend, Trump admitted that the pool would have to be drained to fix the peeling paint and algae blooms that have plagued his mission to have it “American Flag blue” in time for the 4th of July. While many have suggested that the no-bid contractor his administration secured to do the job could be to blame, Trump has his own theories.
According to the Guardian, “Trump acknowledged ‘real problems’ with the site, which he said he had examined himself, this week. He has not acknowledged any issues with the renovation he ordered, however. Instead, the president blamed the pool’s woes on ‘vandals’, which he claimed had taken ‘some form of knife or blade’ and delivered a 250ft gash into the pool’s facade. By Monday, when Trump was still posting about the site, this alleged damage had grown into a ‘300 foot long gash’. Reporters at the Washington Post who visited the pool on Sunday could see no evidence of such damage, it reported, despite Trump’s claims. Trump also claimed that unidentified vandals have poured ‘corrosive and destructive chemicals’ into the pool.”
No evidence has been provided of such claims, though as the Guardian notes, “Government workers were seen pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to tackle the algae.”
Trump’s project dates back to April, when he announced that he’d hired a contractor to coat its granite basin for $1.5 million. That cost quickly exploded to $14 million, and by mid-June $16 million, and that was before the new draining and repairs to come. Early in the renovation, it was found that the White House had hired a no-bid contractor, and then last week, it was revealed that the company’s owner was in fact a Trump donor and neighbor of Mar-a-Lago who the president had once called a “fantastic man.” By that time, images of the pool turned bright green by algae had drawn no shortage of ridicule, and it was being reported that large flakes of paint or sealant were breaking loose.
The president then declared that anyone caught vandalizing the pool would be given a 10-year prison sentence, and since then several people have been arrested and cited for vandalizing the pool, though reporting has cast such allegations in a dubious light: “It’s not clear if any committed acts of vandalism. Washington Post reporters witnessed people interacting with police after pulling objects from the water. Peeling paint has been floating on the surface at times."
A three-time U.S. Olympian and canoeist says he was arrested after noticing a partly detached piece of the blue liner and reaching into the water to touch it. "I didn’t vandalize anything," David Hearn, who had been cycling, told the Washington Post. "I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs."
