Transcription
Donald Trump's multi-million dollar no-bid rush job on the reflecting pool is a disaster because of algae-wielding vandals. This is just another day. If you're one of the millions of tourists headed to our nation's capital this summer, I am sorry to say that one of our most beloved sites is looking a little bit unsightly.
"We also fixed the uh reflecting pool. In fact, if you go over there right now, it looks very good."
"Oh, what great news. I just seem to remember some other folks having a different take on things this morning."
"This morning, a monumental mess."
Crews continue to clean up algae that appeared in the pool following a multi-million dollar renovation project.
"But as you can see here, it does not appear to be in perfect tiptop shape. Quite a bit of algae uh and other muck that has condensed onto the bottom of the reflecting pool."
"Well, sure, if you look at it, it appears bad. So long as people don't do that, we should be fine."
Yes, Donald Trump's reflecting pool woes continue to wash over his administration, but luckily he knows exactly whose fault all of this is.
"And President Trump is blaming vandals for problems with the newly renovated reflecting pool."
"Uh they put somebody said fertilizer in the water. If you put fertilizer in the water, you get algae, but somebody said they might have put fertilizer. They did something to create the algae, but that doesn't matter because uh that's been uh purified."
And while there should be video footage of these ruthless vandals, unfortunately, the guy hired to run the security cameras at the National Mall is the same AV guy who installed cameras in Epstein's cell. Classic hiring mistake. But not to worry, our vigilante chief was able to let the world know exactly what defacement took place.
Over the weekend, Trump posted that vandals took some form of knife or blade and put a 250-foot long gash into the beautiful facade. Then this morning, he wrote it has been given a 300-foot long gong gash. And then this afternoon,
"when you have a 350, I think it's 350, not 250, a 350-foot slit."
"Do I hear 400? 400 ft." Soon the slit is going to be longer than the pool itself. Yes, rest assured. Whether it's the price tag to American taxpayers or the length of the vandalism, that number will always go up.
But if you think that this administration is going to just sit back while vandals terrorize our water-based monuments, you have got another thing coming.
"We do know from one person who was arrested, a former Olympian, David Hearn, a man who competed for this country. He says he was arrested because he was touching the surface there."
Phew. Thank God Washington D.C. is rid of this depraved criminal. Because if there's one thing that we can be assured that Trump has zero tolerance for, it is a man guilty of inappropriate touching. But let this Olympian's arrest be a warning to anybody else looking to wreak havoc on D.C. Things will not end well for you. Make no mistake, making D.C. beautiful is a priority. And if you damage, vandalize, or do anything to impact something like the reflecting pool, you can be prosecuted.
"If these people, as they say, were touching floating paint pieces in the pool. Is that really a crime?"
"Well, if that's indeed all that happened, John, then no. There is no federal crime for merely touching federal property. There is, of course, a federal law that prohibits people from destroying or damaging federal property."
There sure is. So, these government-hating commies better strap in because pretty soon their property-damaging asses are about to be pardoned and financially rewarded.
And as the president reminded us today, things didn't used to be this way.
"Number one, we start with this is now a safe city. It's a safest as safe a city as you're going to get in the country. And when I came here, it was a very dangerous city."
Who could forget? I think we all remember that era before Trump's reign when everyone in D.C. was afraid to leave their house because of that knife-wielding bandit who went around terrorizing our reflecting pools. But while we were fortunate enough to have Donald Trump prevent so much reflecting pool liner crime, unfortunately, he was too late for at least one victim. Dead ducks are now being discovered thanks to the chemicals this administration has been pouring into the water. Sorry, I mean thanks to that duck-murdering vandal, which must be especially hard for this president who has presented himself as quite the crusader against any and all avian deaths.
"Every time you put up a windmill, it costs the country millions of dollars a year to have that horrible thing turn. It's it's ugly. It's bad for the environment. It kills the birds."
"They're very bad environmentally. They kill the birds. Those windmills cost a fortune. They break. They kill the birds. It kills millions and millions of birds a year."
"If you want to see a bird cemetery, go under a windmill sometime. You'll see a bird thing."
I will keep that in mind next time I'm looking for a bird cemetery.
Now, despite what Donald Trump promised initially, refurbishing the reflecting pool is a massive and costly undertaking, made even more complicated now by his hiring of inexperienced contractors.
"The green water takes a backseat here to fixing any potential areas that have been damaged. So"
Swimming pool and aquatic systems specialist Steve Goodale says the scale of the reflecting pool is a unique challenge.
"It's perhaps similar to a man-made shallow lake. It's unique in that it's unlike a swimming pool where we manage it with a chemical sanitizer, chlorine. That's not an option here. Then on top of this, we add the grand scale to it, making it all more complicated."
So, obviously, this is all bad news for us, but great news for this guy, swimming pool specialist Steve Goodell, aka Swimming Pool Steve. Do you know how long this man has been waiting for his phone to ring?
"Are saltwater swimming pools like ocean water? Why can't you use ABS for plumbing swimming pools? What does deadheading a pump mean? How often should I clean my swimming pool? Is it hard to paint a swimming pool?"
"It's actually a lot more challenging than you'd think it would be."
Hell yeah, it is. This man has been grinding it out in the trenches, pun intended, for over a decade. His friends and family relentlessly hounding him, cracking jokes behind his back year after year at holiday dinners about how only a fool would continue to dream of having a nationally relevant pool-based podcast. But today, those folks can flush their wise cracks down the drain because who's on top now, baby? That's right. Do you like apples? Well, if one gets stuck in your pool pump, there's only one man to call. How do you like them apples? Anyway, uh, what were we talking about again?
The most insane part is beautifying a space is really the only thing we expect Trump to be able to do. Governance, no. Justice, nope. National unity, nice try. But making stuff look nice, that is his whole expertise and it is exactly what he promised.
"Beautiful color, beautiful everything. You could never get any anything like that."
"We're going to be able to do it for about a million8, 1.8 million and it's going to take one week. It's going to be something very special and it's going to be a beautiful color. I'm using swimming pool material. It's going to be blue, beautiful blue, which is what they always wanted. Everybody's looking at that reflecting pool. They can't believe it. Reflects. We used a dark blue. It's called American flag blue."
I'm thinking you might want to change that color to blue balls blue since it's taking painfully long and likely won't ever come. Donald Trump is failing miserably at the one thing he's supposed to be good at. Thanks to his UFC-themed birthday party, we have a dilapidated White House lawn. His desperate need to dine under a sea of crystal chandeliers has left us with a demolished East Wing. His name-obsessed ego has relegated the entrance to our top cultural institution to looking like it's being permanently fumigated for termites. And that's not to mention all the other busted facades around Washington.
"Oh, that's that's just how she looks now. Sorry."
If the builder can't build, how can we expect him to do anything else? But here we are with another corrupt, over-budget beautification disaster of his own making. And all it means is that taxpayers are about to be on the hook for millions more dollars over the next few weeks. Because God forbid July 4th rolls around and we not have a perfectly blue reflecting pool in our nation's capital. I mean, if that were to happen, Americans could start thinking that the president, who pardoned insurrectionists and tax cheats, kicked millions off of Medicaid and food assistance, cut funding for cancer research, gave tax breaks to billionaires, weaponized our justice department, strong-armed the IRS to protect himself from an audit, got our nation entrenched in foreign wars, drove up the cost of gas, groceries, and housing, and ran cover for anybody involved in a pedophile ring, was doing a bad job. I mean, at that point, how on earth could he ever recover?
"And President Trump is blaming vandals."
I stand corrected. Before you go, I'm very excited to announce that I've written a new book titled The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World. The book explores what is, in my opinion, the single most important theme that we're dealing with in politics today and moving forward: power. Specifically, how Republicans abuse it and how Democrats refuse to wield it. This book explains how we got here and, more importantly, how we should finally wield power if we're fortunate enough to get it back. It is the blueprint for progressives who want to do far more than just restore the status quo. Please pre-order today by visiting the link in the episode description or go to brianttylercohen.com/book. You can grab yours from any of the major retailers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or find an independent bookstore closest to you that's also listed on that website. Thanks so much for supporting Independent Media.