President Donald Trump’s latest questionable renovation project aims to turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to a shade the president calls “American flag blue.” Despite essentially zero public clamoring for yet another publicly funded renovation project, the president had previously boasted that the repairs and repainting of the National Mall landmark would cost less than $2 million. However, The New York Times reported this week that the budget had ballooned to more than $13 million.
The reflecting pool project is one of several no-bid contracts the administration has recently pushed to emphasize speed over cost reductions in the rush to complete them before the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding this July.
At any given time, his attention will drift back to any number of other side projects that would be more fittingly found on HGTV than C-Span.
Trump’s priorities in his second term offer a glimpse into a parallel timeline, one that presents a far calmer, less frenetic reality than what we currently experience. In this alternate universe, he never descended Trump Tower’s golden escalator in June 2015, keeping his reality show ethos out of politics and confined to our television screens. But after the luster wore off “The Apprentice,” this parallel nonpresident turned to his passion for interior design and decorating, hosting a show in which contestants compete to meet his discerning standards of beauty.
In our present reality, where Trump leads the executive branch and has access to nuclear launch codes, there’s no mistaking where his focus lies. He’s grown bored with the war he started in Iran and has no patience for Congress’ legislating. At any given time, his attention will drift back to the construction of his White House ballroom or any number of other side projects that would be more fittingly found on HGTV than C-Span.
Unlike reality TV, where corporate sponsorships are the norm and cash prizes come with plenty of strings, Trump’s current beautification kick only keeps growing more corrupt as he acts as though the White House — and Washington more broadly — is his personal fiefdom to do with as he pleases.
The ballroom is the most prominent of Trump’s side projects, so far, because it (apparently) required razing of the East Wing and its funding scheme is rife with potential influence buying. (A federal judge declared the project beyond the president’s powers to begin but an appeals court has allowed construction to continue ahead of a hearing next month.) But the other projects churning forward in the background — including a Triumphal Arch and proposed Garden of Heroes — are no less concerning for their scope and cost. The shenanigans surrounding the reflecting pool are themselves a window into how Trump’s aesthetic choices often override practical concerns.
The no-bid contract to repair the reflecting pool went to a Virginia-based company called Atlantic Industrial Coatings. “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools,” Trump said in April in the Oval Office. “He looked at it. He called me up. He said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’” On Monday, MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner and Soorin Kim reported that the president had changed his story, saying “the Interior Department selected it after a recommendation from another contractor that has worked on his personal property.”
According to the Times, the deal was signed in April, weeks before Trump’s initial boast, for a $6.9 million contract. The revised contract, which was released Friday, doubled that cost with no real explanation for the increase. The paint job also does nothing to cover the actual issues that have plagued the reflecting pool for decades, which the Times helpfully summarized:
The pool extends more than 2,000 feet, requiring dozens of joints that have proved prone to leakage.
Algae is another concern. The pool’s shallow depth enables a mirror effect but also turns the pool into a warmed-over petri dish under Washington’s withering summer sun. From above, the pool often looks as green as the grassy lawns around it.
Between 2010 and 2012, the Obama administration spent more than $35 million trying to solve those problems. It failed. The pool was green and matted within a month. It still leaks 16 million gallons of water a year, which the National Park Service must pay to replace.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was asked Wednesday to explain the decision to provide a no-bid contract during a hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee. It did not go well. No-bid contracts are only meant to be deployed in instances where taking the time to go through the normal process would provide a serious injury to the government. Burgum, in response, noted the administration “got handed a record amount of deferred maintenance” with “19 fountains across the city that didn’t work.”
The secretary may have been getting his wires crossed. It was a different sketchy no-bid contract that dealt with fountains, specifically two in Lafayette Square across from the White House. The New York Times previously reported that the same contractor that is currently working on Trump’s ballroom had gotten $17.4 million for work that the Biden administration estimated would cost only $3.3 million.
The only “injury” in question was apparently the risk of hurting Trump’s feelings that the projects wouldn’t be done in time for the 250th birthday bash he wants to throw the country.
In both cases, however, the only “injury” in question was apparently the risk of hurting Trump’s feelings that the projects wouldn’t be done in time for the 250th birthday bash he wants to throw the country. The casual dismissal of federal contracting rules foreshadows a future reckoning with how much taxpayer money is being spent — and potentially wasted — on these vanity projects.
In every interaction questioning the need for these gawdy transformations, Trump seems incredulous that he isn’t being thanked profusely for the work that he’s doing. From his point of view, the American people should treat each new unbidden alteration as the gracious recipients of a home makeover before the credits roll on this week’s episode.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House.