President Donald Trump spent roughly 10 minutes of a high-stakes cabinet meeting on Wednesday — convened amid delicate negotiations to end the U.S. war with Iran — ranting about his efforts to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, falsely claiming predecessors wasted "hundreds of millions" on the landmark and repeatedly comparing it to a swimming pool.
"From 1922 on, it really never worked," Trump told cabinet members, calling the pool — which he repeatedly referred to as a "reflecting lake" — an embarrassment. "It was filthy dirty. It was Biden."
In fact, the Obama administration spent roughly $34 million on the last major renovation of the pool, completed in 2012 — not the "hundreds of millions" Trump claimed. The Biden administration shelved a more comprehensive overhaul after bids came in above $100 million, but never spent that money.
Trump also credited his personal swimming pool expertise for the project's design, telling cabinet members, "Over the years, I built hundreds of pools. I built them every time I built a building. I always like to build Olympic-size swimming pools. I was very aware of [the] swimming pool."
Trump said he personally chose "American flag blue" as the new color for the pool's basin — a decision that has triggered a lawsuit from the Cultural Landscape Foundation, which argues the makeover violates the National Historic Preservation Act.
Trump claimed the project would cost "like $10,000,000, maybe $12,000,000." But federal records show the no-bid contract awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings — a Virginia firm Trump chose because it had worked on pools at his golf club — has already climbed to $13.1 million, more than seven times his original estimate of $1.8 million. Critics also note that Trump's plan does not address the pool's faulty filtration system, which has caused chronic leaks for decades.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, apparently unfazed by the extended detour, used Trump's pool remarks as a springboard to discuss the Iran war — drawing a direct line between pool tiles and nuclear deterrence.
"Your efforts on the reflecting pool are actually a great segue," Hegseth said. "If you look at Washington and Lincoln, these are two men that faced monumental tasks and stood up in historic fashion... there's only one man over the course of both presidencies who has stood up and said they will never get a nuclear weapon."
