Source: USA Today
“For the first time, President Donald Trump admitted there was a construction error on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is seeing another round of costly renovations. The initial construction cost more than $16 million, but the iconic Washington DC attraction had to be drained again after the Fourth of July due to peeling of the American-flag-blue liner that Trump ordered. He blamed ‘vandals’ on the issues the pool has seen, but after numerous people were accused of damaging the pool, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia dropped all of their charges. … ‘As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening, but it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential,’ he wrote. Despite no video evidence pointing toward vandalism, Trump stopped short of placing all of the blame on contractors.” (08/10/26)