Trump’s reflecting pool work hit by costs, lawsuit
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool repairs and paint job will cost $13.1 million, despite Trump’s promises that his contractor would charge only $1.8 million
What happened
A Washington, D.C., nonprofit Monday asked a federal court to pause President Donald Trump’s push to paint the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool “American flag blue,” arguing the makeover violates federal historical preservation laws.
Trump last month said he’d chosen a “pool guy” who worked on his golf club swimming pools to coat and paint the leaking landmark, predicting it would cost $1.8 million. The Interior Department last week raised the price of the contractor’s no-bid contract to $13.1 million, The New York Times reported Monday.
Who said what
Monday’s filing by the Cultural Landscape Foundation said the project was “part of a pattern” in which Trump rushes to transform historic public sites without seeking required approval. The Reflecting Pool’s neutral colors are a “fundamental” part of the “design intent” to “create a reflective surface” between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, the foundation president Charles Birnbaum said in a statement. “A blue-tinted basin is more appropriate to a resort or theme park.”
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What next?
Workers Monday “began preliminary surveys and testing” of the proposed site of Trump’s massive Triumphal Arch, The Associated Press said. Like many of Trump’s “contentious” projects to “leave his lasting imprint on Washington,” the arch is being challenged in court.
