President Donald Trump lashed out early Tuesday morning at a New York Times journalist over their reporting that tied him directly to the contractor the Trump administration had selected to handle renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, denying that he even knew the contractor – despite having praised them weeks earlier.
The Trump administration has sought to renovate the reflecting pool for a cost of $1.8 million, a cost that recently ballooned to $13.1 million. The contractor selected for the project was Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a controversial no-bid contract that New York Times journalist David Fahrenthold recently told PBS News bypassed the normal competitive bidding process.
“In this case, the Trump administration used sort of a special power to block out all competition and hand this job directly to a firm that President Trump says is close to him,” Fahrenthold said. “He says, this is a company that worked on the swimming pools at his golf club in Northern Virginia.”
And in April, Trump said, presumably referencing Atlantic Industrial Coatings, “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools.”
And yet, despite Trump’s own public comments, he lashed out at Fahrenthold as a “lowlife ‘reporter,’” and insisted he played no role in awarding the contract.
“I didn’t give out the contract, ‘Interior’ did, to a contractor I did not know, and have never used before,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”