The cost of a contract for work on the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool has ballooned further — now costing taxpayers a total of $14.7 million — according to federal records. The federal contract with Atlantic Industrial Coatings is up more than $1.5 million from $13.1 million a month ago, a federal database showed as of Thursday.…
President Trump's efforts to spruce up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool faced a snag this week, with algae turning the water green while rips appeared in an "American Flag Blue" surface picked by the president.
People are flocking to see the algae-streaked reflecting pool on the National Mall and are eager to weigh in on the solution.
Plus, keep an eye out for our World Cup pun, intrigue around a tarp, and the Obama Presidential Center.
The Interior Department on Thursday touted the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool by comparing algae to the Iranian navy. “The advanced nanobubbler technology very effectively killed the algae that has plagued every Lincoln Reflecting Pool reopening—most infamously [former President] Obama’s reopening—since 1922,” the department’s press team wrote on social platform X. “The Reflecting…
President Trump’s reflecting pool woes are growing. Days after the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool turned green from algae, the recently applied blue paint is now peeling off the bottom of the pool. Clips are going viral of the new $14M paint on the Reflecting Pool peeling off just 12 days after the pool reopened. pic.twitter.com/4bX8v1jCfB— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) June 18, 2026Meanwhile, the current algae bloom in the pool is the biggest amount recorded in the month of June in at least five years, according to The Washington Post. The president personally requested “American flag blue” paint in his $14 million renovation of the pool, which didn’t go through a required bidding process and was instead awarded to a company with no federal contracting experience who is overcharging the government. Any outdoor pool of untreated water is prone to growing algae, and crews were seen Tuesday dumping hydrogen peroxide into the water in a hasty attempt to kill the aquatic plant. There’s one problem with that: Hydrogen peroxide also serves as a paint remover. So in trying to (ineffectively) kill the algae, Trump also ruined his new paint job and created a potential hazard to local birds such as ducks. A close-up photograph of the pool workers’ equipment revealed that they were using a 12 percent hydrogen peroxide concentrate, which can cause problems if inhaled and burns if the chemical touches the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The Trump administration blames residual material in supply lines for the growing algae problem. The Interior Department, which is in charge of the pool, said it was using hydrogen peroxide and “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to treat the outbreak.But not only has the hydrogen peroxide failed to get rid of the algae, it has caused the blue paint to peel and raised phosphate levels in the pool “far higher than what is recommended to keep algae at bay,” according to CNN, which tested the pool’s water with the help of a swimming pool store. The whole project is now attracting attention for all of the wrong reasons, and it may look even worse than before by the time the America250 celebration takes place on July 4.
Closed-circuit footage from the pool showed Simmonds look over at the child and, without hesitation, jump into the pool fully clothed and quickly reach the child to render aid.
ICE officer Gregory Simmonds jumped into a Florida pool fully clothed to rescue a drowning 6-year-old, performing CPR until the child revived.
As Iran festered and inflation rose earlier this month, Donald Trump talked about a far more urgent matter. The Reflecting Pool.It’s inexplicable why Trump pays so much attention to his ballroom, his arch and the Reflecting Pool. Maybe, as he watches his approval ratings plummet to historic lows, he is turning to real estate since he thinks that’s the only thing he was ever good at.He wasn’t, of course.Using a chart he’d had prepared for the occasion, Trump compared the scale of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to the height of three famous buildings. The chart had an absolutely ridiculous and childish title, “Our Pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers.” And for the rumored size-challenged Trump, brilliantly depicted in South Park, it seemed like a desperate attempt to heighten his manhood.Trump announced that the final coat of protective seal had been applied, completing the repairs in preparation for the nation’s 250th birthday. Happy birthday, America! The whole country, we were told, should be beside itself with exhilaration about the Reflecting Pool paint job.There was just one small problem. By the weekend, the pool was green again.Days after the basin was refilled in its new “American Flag Blue,” algae bloomed across the surface, turning the reflection of the Lincoln Memorial into a mossy swamp. Interior Department officials insisted this was merely “residual algae” left over from supply lines that had sat dormant during construction, and that nanobubblers would soon keep things pristine.National Park Service workers were photographed wading in with hand tools to scoop it out but, by the next morning, the green was back.The renovation, which Trump originally said would cost $1.5 to $2 million and take about a week, instead took six weeks and ran to $14.2 million, awarded through a no-bid contract to a firm that had previously done work at one of Trump’s golf clubs.According to the New York Times, the renovation is largely cosmetic. The crumbling underground pipes that actually circulate and filter the water, which has been a documented problem for decades, remain untouched.The basin may be freshly sealed and painted American Flag Blue but the infrastructure underneath is still rotting, which means all that slime will keep coming back.Which brings us to Bill Pulte.Trump’s plan was to install Pulte, the 38-year-old director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, a man with zero, zilch, intelligence experience whatsoever, as acting Director of National Intelligence, handing him oversight of the CIA, the NSA, and 16 other agencies that form the backbone of American national security.If the Reflecting Pool is Trump’s favorite metaphor for shining restoration, Pulte is its antithesis, a dark mirror.Pulte didn’t build his thin résumé and questionable reputation by fixing things. He built it by digging. At FHFA, his signature move was using access to vast mortgage records to excavate dirt on Trump’s political enemies and refer them for prosecution, turning a boring regulatory backwater into an opposition research shop for his real estate crony in chief.Most people had barely heard of the guy until he turned up as the wacko behind that infamous AI-generated image of Trump as a Christ-like healer, the one Trump gleefully posted to Truth Social.The plan was to seat Pulte on June 19, even before Tulsi Gabbard’s official departure. It set off a bipartisan revolt.Lawmakers from both parties balked at handing the nation’s entire intelligence apparatus to a mobile-home-park financier with no background in the field, and Democrats made clear they wouldn’t support renewing Section 702 of FISA, one of the country’s core surveillance tools, while Pulte was anywhere near the job.Facing the fallout, Trump did what Trump does. He TACOed. Trump announced he would nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former SEC chairman, and Trump loyalist and toady, as the permanent Director of National Intelligence.The Senate was to confirm him at lightning speed, circumventing Pulte’s acting duties. Pulte, it turns out, eroded faster than the Reflecting Pool pipes.But Trump, on a whim, impulse and switch-a-roo, decided to stall Clayton’s confirmation Wednesday to compel Congress to pass the SAVE America voter ID bill and to force the renewal of FISA Section 702.Furthermore, Trump seeks to keep Clayton in his current SDNY role until his successor is confirmed, while accusing Democrats of reneging on a deal regarding surveillance programs.So, what this means is that Pulte will now be allowed to run amok, because the SAVE bill has no chance of passing in the Senate.Gabbard already hollowed out the intelligence community, pushing out veteran analysts and draining institutional knowledge on her way out the door, so it’s hard to even imagine just how devious Pulte will be while Clayton waits his turn — if he ever gets it.Our adversaries, Russia, China, Iran, no doubt saw the gaping holes Pulte’s...