{"id":293,"date":"2026-06-12T15:40:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=293"},"modified":"2026-06-12T15:40:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:40:01","slug":"trump-exaggerates-previous-spending-on-reflecting-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"Trump exaggerates previous spending on Reflecting Pool"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

ANALYSIS \u2014 The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool began\u00a0filling\u00a0with water on June 4 following maintenance work that President Donald Trump\u00a0called\u00a0a \u201cbig project.\u201d In late May, Trump\u00a0claimed\u00a0that \u201cthe Biden administration and the Obama administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get it to work, and they failed,\u201d adding that his administration was spending \u201c$10 million, maybe, $12 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But that exaggerates the amount spent by previous administrations. We could find no record of any major work done during former President Joe Biden\u2019s term, and the\u00a0total spent\u00a0for an overhaul of the pool during former President Barack Obama\u2019s term was about $35 million.<\/p>\n

According to the publicly available federal\u00a0contract, the Trump administration has spent about $14 million to repaint and seal the bottom of the pool, which has a history of leaks.<\/p>\n

The pool was completely refilled with water by June 9, as shown in a\u00a0PBS News timelapse\u00a0of the progress.<\/p>\n

Trump made his comments about prior work on the Reflecting Pool in a May 27 Cabinet meeting. \u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing,\u201d he\u00a0said\u00a0of the condition of the pool. \u201cIt was filthy, dirty. It was Biden. And they spent, between the two of them, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to fix this thing. Now, when Biden \u2014 when Obama did it, he spent way over $100 million.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The work done by the current administration, Trump said, included sandblasting the surface and painting it blue. \u201cWe made the surface as good as it can be and we\u2019re now covering it with the most beautiful blue, very thick,\u201d he said. \u201cYou think of it as a very sophisticated form of rubber, no leaks, no problems. And it\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s called American Flag blue. That was the color we chose.\u201d<\/p>\n

We asked the National Park Service for details about the scope of the recent work, but we didn\u2019t get a response. Trump has mentioned repeatedly that the pool was being repainted, which is reflected in the publicly available\u00a0information\u00a0about the contract. Based on government documents it obtained, the New York Times reported that the scope of work also involves repairs to some of the leaking crevices between the concrete slabs at the bottom of the pool.<\/p>\n

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Extensive work to rebuild the pool started in 2010 and concluded in 2012 during the Obama administration. That project used funds from the\u00a0American Recovery and Reinvestment Act\u00a0\u2014 stimulus legislation enacted in response to the Great Recession \u2014 to essentially replace the original\u00a0pool\u00a0that was first built in the early 1920s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old reflecting pool was built with an asphalt and tile bottom on poorly supported soil consisting primarily of marshes,\u201d one of the companies that worked on that project had\u00a0written\u00a0at the time, explaining that the pool had sunk a foot into the ground over time.<\/p>\n

That project also switched the source of the water from the city\u2019s municipal system to the nearby\u00a0Tidal Basin\u00a0fed by the Potomac River, with an ozone water filtration system, according to the National Park Service. There was an unexpected amount of algae when the new pool first opened, according to a Washington Post\u00a0report\u00a0at the time, which said that the ozone levels in the filtration system needed adjustment.<\/p>\n

Some maintenance issues over the years \u2014\u00a0such as\u00a0a broken water line in 2019, according to the National Park Service \u2014 led to water quality issues in the pool that required repair.<\/p>\n

During the May Cabinet meeting, Trump referred to the change in the water source during the 2012 project, saying, \u201cthe water from the Potomac was not suitable for this, to put it mildly. It was disgusting what happened.\u201d But we couldn\u2019t find any information indicating that the source of the water for the pool has changed under Trump. We asked the White House, the Interior Department and the NPS about the water source, but we didn\u2019t get a response.<\/p>\n

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ANALYSIS \u2014 The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool began filling with water on June 4 following maintenance work that President Donald Trump called a \u201cbig project.\u201d In late May, Trump claimed that \u201cthe Biden administration and the Obama administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get it to work, and they failed,\u201d adding that his administration was spending \u201c$10 million, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-white-house"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump exaggerates previous spending on Reflecting Pool - American Industry Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=293\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump exaggerates previous spending on Reflecting Pool - American Industry Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ANALYSIS \u2014 The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool began filling with water on June 4 following maintenance work that President Donald Trump called a \u201cbig project.\u201d In late May, Trump claimed that \u201cthe Biden administration and the Obama administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get it to work, and they failed,\u201d adding that his administration was spending \u201c$10 million, […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=293\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Industry Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-12T15:40:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=293#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=293\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f31b66192ea99275704b1c4c1195d2bd\"},\"headline\":\"Trump exaggerates previous spending on Reflecting Pool\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-12T15:40:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=293\"},\"wordCount\":688,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=293#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/6f6bf56d4ebde7935a2f954d9e1a7446.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"White House\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=293#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=293\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=293\",\"name\":\"Trump exaggerates previous spending on Reflecting Pool - 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