Trump attacks New York Times over report on reflecting pool’s rising costs

The Hill ^ | 05/12/26 8:36 AM ET | Sophie Brams

[Kleon]

President Trump ripped The New York Times on Tuesday morning over a report detailing the ballooning cost of his project to repair and renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

“The Failing New York Times, which is one of the worst newspapers anywhere in the World, and is losing subscribers on an hourly basis, is now at it again,” Trump wrote in a lengthy, early-morning Truth Social post.

“Just like they covered my Landslide 2024 Presidential Election Victory inaccurately, and without shame, constantly making major mistakes and incorrect predictions at every path along the way, they are now trying to justify Obama and Biden’s expensively botched attempt at fixing the long broken, unsightly, and unsanitary Reflecting Pool that NOW sits majestically between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial,” he continued.

[deks]

The Obama administration spent $34 million between 2010 and 2012 on a major renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which included structural repairs, foundation work, and a new filtration system.

Despite this effort, leaks and algae problems persisted, with the pool continuing to lose around 16 million gallons annually.

The Biden administration proposed a more extensive plan, with estimates cited at $301 million over three years, for a full structural rebuild, which was not pursued.

Leo AI

[Kleon]

“Instead of taking 4 years to build, at a cost, granite pavers and all, of 400 Million Dollars, we could construct a far superior Reflecting Pool for 5 or 6 Million Dollars, and could complete the project in 2 weeks rather than 4 years. What a difference in time and money, and for a far superior end result!”

He previously said "Government bureaucrats wanted $300 MILLION" and that it would be done for $1.5–2 MILLION. Where did the extra $100 million come from?

[deks]

~~Where did the extra $100 million come from?~~

Cost overruns are to be expected. They are ubiquitous.

[silverleaf]

It’s $13 million completed
Not an “extra” $100 million
Cost went up to expedite completion for upcoming 250 yr celebrations in DC

[silverleaf]

Has the NYT tackled the cost overrun issue of Jerome Powell’s $2 Billion Fed Reserve HQ renovation?

[Redmen4ever]

Everything the Federal government touches balloons in cost.

When a renovation of the Federal Reserve Board building was proposed in 2017, it was supposed to cost $100 million. It wound up costing $2.5 billion.

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2017/09/14/remake-the-fed-reserve-board-seeking-contractor.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/25-billion-renovation-center-dojs-criminal-investigation-federal-reser-rcna253540

Part of the reason for such gigantic cost overruns is endless delays including litigation, inter-agency coordination, and numerous self-appointed interest groups. Another part is that cost is simply past along to taxpayers.

As to whether these cost overruns are dismissed as inevitable and nothing unusual is a matter of perspective. If you’re the New York Times, it’s scandalous if somehow connected to Trump; and, it’s o.k. otherwise.

The only realistic alternative is to keep the federal government as small as possible, as we were able to do pretty well, except during major wars, up to the 1930s. Since then government has been growing faster than the economy so that, today, the debt is the biggest existential threat we face.

[Kleon]

Cost overruns are to be expected. They are ubiquitous.

But this isn't about cost overruns. He's talking about the same report but using two different figures.

[HIDEK6]

Fraud, graft and embezzlement.

[Liz]

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was built in 1923, designed to create a mirror-like
image of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument of shallow, still, calming water.

[mass55th]

I see the Trust that is supposed to oversee the reflecting pool, is suing Trump over the blue paint job. They were perfectly happy with the pool as it was, being scummy, and full of the accumulation of rotted leaves that fell over the years. For an alleged non-profit Trust whose responsibility was to keep the pool clean and beautiful, they allowed it to turn into a bog. I think it’s time that the government conducts an audit into that Trust’s bookkeeping.

[Organic Panic]

Only the government can clean a mud puddle for half a billion dollars.

And for the record I refuse to worship Lincoln like we are told to. Who else killed that many Americans to ensure the government has absolute control over every aspect of our lives?

[rlmorel]

"...Who else killed that many Americans to ensure the government has absolute control over every aspect of our lives..."

If that is all "The United States of America" means to you, then of course we wouldn't expect you or like minded people to feel any differently about it.

[rlmorel]

Hey...being the member of a trust and not having to do anything is a pretty good gig if you can get it.

[mass55th]

"Hey...being the member of a trust and not having to do anything is a pretty good gig if you can get it."

This is the group of idiots suing the Department of the Interior:

The Cultural Landscape Foundation

This is their Board of Directors:

TCLF Board of Directors

[rlmorel]

From TCLF "About" page:

---

TCLF’s efforts to make threatened sites visible includes significant African American cultural landscapes, such as burial grounds, neighborhoods, gardens, and public landscapes. In fact, the interest in telling a fuller story engenders a feeling that landscape architect Randy Hester identifies as spatial nostalgia—“the charged scene, personally symbolic and perhaps sacred, [that] can bring tears of joy or sadness to our eyes for an entire lifetime.” Unfortunately, it would appear that the threat of erasure is again on the rise. Recently, the federal government has taken steps to affect how history is conveyed and interpreted at National Park sites: in Philadelphia, signs regarding enslavement have been removed at the President’s House at Independence Hall National Park; signage at World War II-era Japanese American confinement sites are being altered; a rainbow flag at the Stonewall National Memorial, the first national park site dedicated to LGBTQ history, was recently removed; and others.

Another recent example is the bulldozing of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. The plaza’s surgical insertion on a two-block stretch of 16th Street, N.W. immediately north of the White House and Lafayette Square (part of President’s Park), began in June 2020 amid nationwide protests about the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In a press release on October 28, 2021, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the completion of Black Lives Matter Plaza and that it was a “permanent installation.”

In early March 2025, following threats by President Trump and Congress of a federal take-over of the city and loss of federal funding, Mayor Bowser announced the plaza would be erased. On X she stated: “The mural inspired millions of people and helped our city through a painful period, but now we can’t afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference.” That “permanent installation” is now the subject of spatial nostalgia..."

---

Yep. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."

To paraphrase a famous football coach: "They are who we thought they were."

And if you read it, there is a preponderance if Ivy League Elites. Leftists.

[mass55th]

Thanks for the additional info about this bunch of liberal retards.

[rlmorel]

I hate that you have to fish around to find out what they actually support, but you can find it.

When I see things like that, it makes me understand that they KNOW their policies and support of the things they support have no mandate with the American public.

Because they obscure it.

[Texas Eagle]

The Cultural Landscape Foundation and its founder, Charles Birnbaum, argued in a lawsuit filed this week that the blue paint coating is “altering the historic character” of the reflecting pool without proper authority.

The "historic character" was a stinky disgusting algae filled swamp that only demonicRATS could appreciate.

[mass55th]

"Because they obscure it."

A clear reason to audit their asses.