Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump unveiled the latest progress in restoring the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
“This is the Reflecting Pool at The Lincoln Memorial. Two thousand five hundred feet, the length of the tallest Building in the World. Starting the final phase of Renovation that was supposed to cost 301 Million Dollars, and take three years, and was instead done, with the help of Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and his entire Department, and a much better final result – 2 Million Dollars in one week!” he wrote Friday in a post to Truth Social.
The president justified the restoration because the pool was dirty and dilapidated, believing the historic site, which featured Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington, should be better maintained.
“I do many such things for Government and, as President, it is my Honor to do so,” the president wrote. “This is just one of them. Another, and one far more exciting, is Most Favored Nations for Prescription Drugs, where the United States paid the highest price in the World, and now they are paying the lowest, with a drop of 50, 60, 70, and even 80%!”
The president told reporters that the restoration process officially began Thursday and is expected to take three days to complete.
He added that the new floor color is also made of the “latest and greatest filament” in the color “American flag blue.”
The update to the reflecting pool comes amid the president’s efforts to improve national monuments ahead of America’s Semiquincentennial, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The president has notably begun construction of a new White House ballroom where the East Wing once stood, while also proposing an overhaul of the Trump-Kennedy Center.
He has also proposed a gigantic triumphal arch across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial, which has received preliminary design approval from the arts commission.
