Trump Announces Renovation Project For Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool With An ‘american Flag Blue’ Coating

President Donald Trump is having nan Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool coated successful a swimming excavation aboveground hued successful "American emblem blue," covering up a decades-old granite aboveground that he said was "leaking for illustration a sieve" and would return years to replace.

The president announced nan renewal astatine an Oval Office arena Thursday, saying nan coating had already begun. He was inspired to tackle nan task aft a friend visited from Germany and lamented that nan h2o was filthy and looked disgusting, Mr Trump said. "And I went complete location pinch Secret Service successful tow, and I said, isn’t that a shame? That’s terrible," he added, showing reporters a photograph of nan tract arsenic it undergoes work.

The task is 1 much makeover refashioning nan nation’s superior to Mr Trump’s liking, pursuing alterations specified arsenic nan demolition of nan White House's East Wing to make room for a caller ballroom. Lined pinch stately elm trees betwixt nan Lincoln Memorial and nan Washington Monument, nan reflecting excavation is 1 of nan astir iconic sites successful nan capital. It’s wherever Martin Luther King Jr. gave his celebrated "I Have a Dream" reside successful 1963.

In Trump’s telling, nan reflection excavation task is simply a lawsuit study successful business acumen. The president said he scrapped plans to person nan granite replaced, which he said was estimated to costs $301 cardinal and would return astatine slightest 3 years.

Instead, Trump said he called a fewer excavation contractors he knows from past existent property projects — “I person a feline who’s unbelievable astatine doing swimming pools up nan road,” Trump said.

The president went pinch a scheme to cleanable nan granite and laic down a caller “industrial people pool” aboveground for $1.5 million, he said. All told, it would return a fewer weeks. Trump noted it would beryllium fresh good earlier July 4, erstwhile nan federation celebrates nan 250th day of its independence.

Trump brought up nan task unprompted and said astir it for respective minutes astatine a White House arena connected efforts to trim supplier prices. He said he initially wanted a turquoise-colored aboveground “like successful nan Bahamas” but was sold erstwhile a contractor suggested “American emblem blue.”

“You’re going to extremity up pinch a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool,” Trump said, “the measurement it’s expected to be, overmuch amended than it ever was.”