Transcription
President Trump hoped to turn the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool, what he called the American flag blue. That's the color he wanted for the water. But right now, it's green as heck. The more than $14 million renovation was completed just over a week ago, and yesterday, crews of parks workers were spotted dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide in there to try to get rid of the growth. One worker tells CNN it will take, quote, "an entire lifetime to fix," but this issue is not new.
CNN's Betsy Klein joins me now. Betsy, this is certainly not the color they wanted. There is already criticism about spending this kind of money on this particular project. What are you learning?
Well, sure. It's been just over a week since that $13 million renovation project to drain, repair, paint, and refill the 6.5 million gallon Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was completed. But almost immediately, a major problem came to the surface: that is algae. The pool growing increasingly murky and green by the day. And CNN even took an independent sample of this water last week. We consulted with a pool store. It showed that phosphate levels were far higher than what's recommended to keep algae at bay. And since then, it only got greener.
Our colleague Sunlen Safadi spoke with an algae expert, and he offered an assessment. Listen, "We're in Washington, D.C., in the summertime. This is a shallow pool with stagnant water, abundant sunlight that creates a situation where opportunistic algae can really take advantage of the situation. If there's already some phosphate fertilizer in the water, that's really opportune this week, especially for the blue-green algae that can fix nitrogen. So they are having a field day out here, probably."
And this has prompted a major remediation effort from the Trump administration. They sent crews clad in hip waders to vacuum up clumps of algae. And on Tuesday, they dispatched workers to dump gallons of hydrogen peroxide in the pool. Then the Department of Interior says that a state-of-the-art filtration technology known as an ozone nano-bubbler has been installed and has successfully destroyed the algae bloom. But this morning, it's still extremely green.
This project, we know, has been a major priority for President Trump. He personally traveled into that drained pool in his motorcade to inspect its progress. The White House didn't respond to our inquiry as to whether the president is aware of these cleanup efforts, surprised by the presence of algae, or if he's talked to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about it. But this is something that has plagued many administrations, including back in 2012, when the Obama administration spent $34 million over 18 months only to have major algae issues. And around that time, the National Park Service found 80 dead ducks inside the pool.
But ultimately, the Interior Department says that the nano-bubbler and a full-time maintenance crew from the Fish and Wildlife Services are going to make these fixes more permanent.
I think you talk to people who live in D.C., and they will say that it was just overrun with algae and it was green. This is disgusting. I'm using swimming pool material. It's going to be blue, beautiful blue, which is what they always wanted.
The renovation getting mixed reviews from visitors. "It looks exactly the same, so I'm really unclear what exactly was done. I never seen the water like this. I was able to see the bottom all the time. I was excited to see it, but I mean, it just looks swampy. Just looks swampy."
Jonah Goldberg: Yeah. I was saying during a commercial about the drain. The swamp metaphor. Yeah, the metaphor just leaps out. It kind of kind of reminds me of my favorite, one of my favorite. And it lines at least one that's safe for family TV. Was, "World's largest iceberg hit by metaphor." Administration sets itself up to not be able to talk about affordability is just kind of stunning. The ballroom, this thing, the UFC fight, whether you loved it or hated it or whatever, it's just they get stuck in this messaging that just isn't about the stuff that Republicans want them to talk about.
Can I just say something that I'm baffled by, which is we are right now having the World Cup? I have covered World Cups and other countries like this is a gimme for this administration. If you want to actually show goodwill and being a good host and being a global partner, like why isn't he at the matches? Why isn't he doing something with that? I mean, to me that there's just like so many cell phones, to use a little bit of, football speak, that.
Yeah, I agree with you. This is just one of many. I don't know why we're talking about reflecting pools right now. With all the things that are going on, including the World Cup, I don't think this is a major issue. I will tell you, if you take a few steps back, having been in and out of this city for decades now, the city looks the best I've ever seen it. It is safer than it has been in years. And, I think those are all fantastic things that that helps everyone.
Congressman, I mean, look, I think it's in the interest of all of us that this reflecting pool look beautiful. I think that the challenge here is that the president spent a lot of money on this saying, you know, it was going to look a certain way. Now, obviously, it doesn't, but it takes place inside this bigger context, right, of a president that is focused on his own legacy in many ways, when Americans are struggling. And this is part of kind of the narrative around as well, his ballroom, which is something that I'm going to play a I want to play what Trump has said recently about the ballroom, because it's, well, just listen to Trump.
This is all the things he said about the ballroom and how much it was going to cost you, the taxpayer. "And I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it. The countries that we're donating a $400 million ballroom, myself and donors are giving them free of charge for that thing. We did this, no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever. Rich people and people are putting up the money. Zero taxpayer dollars. We didn't ask for any tax money. We have no taxes. It's taxpayer free. We have no taxpayer putting up $0.10. We're putting a $400 million to do the ballroom section of the ballroom. We are putting that up privately."
So I mean, the Post is reporting that it's actually going to be $600 million and the taxpayers are going to foot half the bill for that, right? While at the same time groceries more expensive than they have. So let's let's break this up. Number one, you just had the, alleged drone attack or attempted drone attack for the UFC fight. A terrorist attack right here in Washington, D.C. The White House was built. That wing was built in, what, the 1940s? Do you really think the security apparatus there is appropriate? Do I believe that there are components of the White House, that the Secret Service, that the military and others should be funding? Listen, the president, it's members of Congress. But but let's raise some flags. Let's point out exactly what the president said. The president and his own quote that you played here on TV said the segment of the ballroom, $400 million being put up by private donors, including the president. That doesn't take a salary.
Congressman, just a little bit of history. When I was in the White House, I got a call from Donald Trump, and, he called to say he wanted to build a ballroom, and he said, "We ought to have. We have those, shitty little tents." Can I say that? It's too late. It's late. Roll that back. Donald Trump is president. Like, you know, when you have where you have the state dinners, he said, you need a ballroom. Let me build a modular ballroom for you. You could take it apart and put it together. And so on. It he never raised security. He never raised security. When he started talking about building a ballroom, he is obsessed with building a ballroom. This just became a convenient way to divert public money into the project, because he. It became much more expensive and he couldn't, extort enough from the donors to, to pay for it. And look, this whole thing, all of these issues have to do with what he tells us and what actually happens. And there is usually a pretty big gap between what he promises, you know, relative to these kinds of things and what he delivers. So it it's becomes a pattern that makes people very cynical and very, jaded.
Presidents not taking a salary. They're going to put 100 millions of dollars in private funds to pay for a ballroom. You're going to have upgraded security apparatus. It protects the security, the United States. Right. But do you think you think he's back, by the way, raising money on the presidency? I mean, you said twice now that he's not taking a salary. He's not he's he's billions of dollars richer than the day he won the presidency. That's so crypto that they're putting up hundreds of millions of dollars for this. You have a security apparatus that's going to be improved, and you use the UFC thing to push his crypto thing, which he built investors from. His family has made billions of dollars off of the presidency. And so he has a talking point that he doesn't like taking a salary. And I'm not like he's taking a vow of poverty. I'm not a Hunter Biden. What are we talking about? Well, Trump has made vast, vastly more from the presidency than Hunter Biden than what we see. The bottom line is you said that the president is not abiding by the commitments. I think that based on the quote that you heard, he is absolutely fulfilling the commitments that he said, just just to tie this whole discussion together.
Back to the metaphor, when you have a president who has these projects, these pet projects, and he is going to big donors who have policy questions before him when he is doing business with people, at the same time that he is, is running the government that polices them when he is making deals with foreign governments, on behalf of the United States, at the same time that he and his family are making private deals with the same entities, that reflecting pool with the algae is really a metaphor of the way he is governing. And that's the point that Jonah's making. So I appreciate the fact that you're trying to defend them, but we ought to acknowledge that these are problems. It worries me about what commitments were made by these donors who have big policy and regulatory issues that they're concerned about.
You know, this, David, all I'm saying is that the premise here was that the president was not fulfilling his commitment. I'm saying that he is. And I think that the facts show that. So, Congressman, I don't we don't want to turn this into a pile-on by any stretch. I think the question that I the question I have for you is to take it. No, to take it to the politics of it. Okay. When I talk to your former colleagues on Capitol Hill, Republicans, you know, 56% of Americans told Washington Post, ABC News in polling that they oppose the ballroom project. I take all your points defending the president. But when you talk to Republicans running for reelection, this is something that they will say privately has broken through as a problem with their voters. Yeah. And I hear you, I'm just telling you, when I go around Louisiana, I have never heard a single person say anything about the ballroom at all. Number one. Number two, I think it's important for us to understand the security conditions, to understand what, as we know, there's actually a bumper, a bunker. Excuse me? Under the the ballroom. I think there's security. And there certainly are security implications, that's for sure.