Trump Says $1.5 Million Reflecting Pool Plan Trails $14.8 Million
President Donald Trump said in April that the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial could be renovated for $1.5 million, even as federal spending records showed at least $14.8 million in contracts had already been awarded for the project. Trump repeated his criticism at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, saying past administrations spent hundreds of millions on the pool.
He said, "The Biden administration and the Obama administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get it to work, and they failed. And we’ll be spending, you’ll give me a number, but I think it’s a very low number. It’s like in the number that we originally talked about."
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
The reflecting pool is more than 2,000 feet long and sits between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech there in 1963, making the site a fixed part of the project’s public profile.
Trump said in April that he had decided to coat the pool with a new industrial grade pool surface hued in American flag blue for $1.5 million. He also said the granite surface was "leaking like a sieve."
Obama Reconstruction Costs
The Obama administration spent at least $34 million on a two-year reconstruction project that ended in 2012. Repairs addressed stagnant water and leaks, and the pool was reengineered with a circulation and filtration system that used river water from the nearby Tidal Basin instead of city drinking water.
The work also made the pool shallower to save water, tinted the bottom gray to make the water darker, and added paved paths. An report from August 2012 said the reconstruction cost $34 million, while federal spending records show the government awarded at least $1.3 million more in contracts related to the Obama project.
Trump Project Contracts
No major repairs to the pool were done during the Biden administration, according to the reporting. Chuck Sams said a full rehabilitation did not move forward after an estimate came in at more than $100 million, and he said the pool was cleaned annually during Biden’s term to manage algae buildup.
For Trump’s project, federal spending records show at least $14.8 million in contracts have been awarded so far. Taylor Rogers said in an email, "Thanks to President Trump, the Reflecting Pool will be restored to all its glory ahead of America’s 250th celebrations at a fraction of the money that the former Presidents Obama and Biden squandered only to worsen its condition!"
The spending records leave Trump’s $1.5 million figure far below the contracts already awarded, and the next issue for readers is whether the project keeps growing past that estimate or settles near it.
