(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Trump finally admits his pool guy screwed up the Reflecting Pool [1] ['Lisa Needham'] Date: 2026-08-10 After screaming about antifa vandals and “Radical Left Lunatics” who should face “years in jail!” for damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and after furiously disagreeing with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop felony charges against former Olympian David Hearn, President Donald Trump has come around to admitting what everyone knew all along: There’s “no video or proof” of these alleged vandals—but there was “some contractor error.” You don’t say. This was quite the flip, given that on Sunday, Trump was still screaming about vandalism and claiming he had a new witness report, when all he was really doing was recapping the now-tossed indictment of Hearn. In the most unhinged bit, however, Trump still wants Hearn prosecuted because there was “substantial other damage” to the Reflecting Pool. Related | Trump rages over losing his Reflecting Pool scapegoat Trump also threw his pool guy under the bus, backed it up, and ran him over again. “As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening,” he admitted. Pal, you demanded the rush and called it an emergency and wanted it finished by your birthday, not America’s birthday. Remember how Trump insisted the evil vandals had wrecked the whole of the pool with 300 feet of gashes, and violently tore up the yucky mismatched blue floor? Now that Trump is shifting blame to his contractor, the damage “was a very small area of this massive Pool and was relatively inconsequential.” So which is it? Is there “substantial other damage” or is it “relatively inconsequential”? It kinda can’t be both, though you can expect everyone around Trump to shift to saying that the Reflecting Pool is actually in gorgeous shape and the contractor just made a few tiny boo-boos. Clay Jones Trump walking back the claim that he literally possessed pictures of all the antifa vandals’ damage is one of the most blatant flip-flops here. Back in June, Trump declared, “I can’t help it if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it up. And we also have pictures of it.” Oh, but sorry, you can’t see them. Those pictures go to a different school. In Canada. “No, at the right time you’ll see it. You’ll see it in court. You’ll see it in court,” Trump blathered. “But all you have to do is call the Parks Department, call the Department of Interior.” So now, even though the Reflecting Pool is almost completely great—just a few little fixes needed!—the pool is still a drained husk. However, the National Park Service did finally get around to flushing the pipes, a task one would think they would have undertaken before letting the pool boy wreck it and then hastily fill the pool so Trump was happy. Somehow, though, according to NPS, this is actually former President Barack Obama’s fault. And guess what? The pool guy gets to wreck it again. Trump gave his buddy’s company, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, another no-bid contract to fix their crappy initial installation, because of course. Back in July when we first learned about this sweetheart deal, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum burbled on about how great the contractor was: “We’ll use the same company, because they did a fantastic job.” But no, you can’t know the cost. Just that it’s a “small number.” Yeah, no. First Trump said it was going to cost $1.8 million, then it suddenly ballooned to $13.1 million, and the profit margins for the pool boy were thicccccc. Your tax dollars covered the outstandingly high amount this contract had, a hefty 20% built in, where regular government contractors normally get profit margins of about 6 to 12%. You just know this next round of contracting is going to be equally shady. So, expect millions more of your tax dollars to go to this nonsense—and you can also expect the Reflecting Pool will still look like wet garbage when he’s done. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/8/10/800082358/news/trump-finally-admits-his-pool-guy-screwed-up-the-reflecting-pool/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/