Trump fact-checking the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool renovations

This article was originally published on PolitiFact

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has long drawn on his experience as a real estate developer. Nearly a year and a half into his second term, he is increasingly focused on efforts that will leave a lasting physical imprint on the nation’s capital.

He demolished the East Wing of the White House for the purpose of building a ballroom, paved the White House Rose Garden, initiated plans for a 250-foot triumphal arch, renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in his honor (and later closed it for renovation), and requested plans to renovate the city’s public golf courses.

In recent weeks, Trump also ordered a rapid renovation of the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool, which spans the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.

WATCH: Lawsuit Challenges Trump’s Reflecting Pool Project as Projected Costs Skyrocket

The renovation of the Reflecting Pool attracted the most attention due to Trump’s intention to paint the bottom “American flag blue.”

“I love construction, it’s very exciting,” he said at a Cabinet meeting on May 27, emphasizing his love for building swimming pools. He called the renovation “a really important thing” and said he might initiate a renovation of the nearby World War II Memorial Fountain.

Critics slammed the changes to the Reflecting Pool, saying they would turn one of the country’s sacred monuments into a swimming pool.

“The Reflecting Pool is part of one of the most iconic landscapes in the world and has defined the visual and experiential character of the nation’s capital for more than a century,” the plaintiffs wrote in a lawsuit seeking to stop the project. The plaintiffs, an organization of landscape architects, said continuing the renovations would create a “permanent stain on the National Mall.” The case is pending.

Since the project’s inception, Trump has exaggerated the size of the pool, the timeline and costs of renovation, and changed his mind about the central contractor. Here’s a fact check of some recent statements by Trump on the project.

The reflecting pool is “longer than the tallest building in the world if you stand it on its side, and it’s almost 200 feet wide.” — Trump at a Cabinet meeting on May 27

This is overkill in both senses.

The rectangular pool is 2,028 feet long, which would rank it fourth in the world if it were a skyscraper, according to the Skyscraper Center’s list of tallest buildings. The first is Burj Khalifa in Dubai at 2,717 feet, followed by Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur at 2,227 feet and Shanghai Tower in Shanghai at 2,073 feet.

The pool is 167 feet wide.

Repairs to the Reflecting Pool will take approximately “two weeks”. — Trump during the May 7 and 11 events at the White House

Trump notoriously offers two-week estimates that don’t hold true. This happens here too.

As of this writing, three weeks have passed since Trump first estimated the Reflecting Pool updates, and the space is not open. But Trump said more work had been done than initially expected.

During a visit to the Reflecting Pool on the afternoon of May 27, the entire length of the pool was covered in black, with trucks and machinery visible and making noise. The perimeter of the pool was surrounded by a black fence.

READ MORE: Trump Walks Through Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool To Inspect The Blue Coating He’s Adding

On May 18, the Trump administration said in a court filing that “the project will be concluded and the basin will be refilled in the coming weeks.” At the May 27 Cabinet meeting, Trump said, “We’re probably 70 percent done” and said it would open “in a few weeks.”

“We decided to do much more than we initially planned,” Trump said. “I thought I was just going to do the surface, but we said the problem is the outer ring also looks pretty bad, where you walk, so we sandblasted it.”

A sign posted on the fence of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall on May 27, 2026. (Louis Jacobson/PolitiFact)

The federal government will repair the pool for about “$1.8 million.” —Trump May 7 in remarks to reporters

Many people who have embarked on their own renovation will identify with this reality: the costs of the project have multiplied.

Trump said on May 7 of the cost of the reflecting pool: “We had estimated that the repair would be about $355 million and it was going to take 3.5 years, you can see that from the size.” So we’re going to be able to do it for about ($1.8 million), and it’ll take a week. »

The New York Times reported that in April the federal government awarded a no-bid contract citing an exemption to tenders intended for emergency situations. Trump wants the project to be completed by the July 4 250th anniversary celebrations.

READ MORE: Design plan for Trump’s proposed Washington Arch approved by Trump-appointed commission

The Times reported in May that the cost was $13.1 million, or an additional $6.2 million. Federal contract records show an Interior Department award to Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings to paint the pool.

Trump acknowledged the rising costs, saying it was a larger project. “I originally thought I would do it for $2 or $3 million, just to make a base,” Trump said on May 21. “But now we’re fixing the exterior of what we’re doing. So we’ll probably be in it for less than $20 million.”

We asked the Trump administration for documents showing a previous estimate of $355 million and did not get an answer to that question. Instead, an Interior Department spokesperson responded by criticizing former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The Obama administration spent $35 million, according to a federal contract, to try to fix the pool’s problems, including leaks and algae. This effort failed to resolve these problems; it was still green and the leaks continued.

Chuck Sams, director of the National Park Service under Biden, told CNN that the service had received an estimate “in excess of $100 million” but had not moved forward.

On whether Trump knew the reflecting pool overhaul contractor

Trump changed his story about whether he knew the contractor.

The Interior Department spokesperson did not directly answer our question about whether Trump knew Atlantic Industrial Coatings and said the selected company was the only one with the expertise, personnel and materials needed to complete the project on time.

The White House told PolitiFact that Trump did not have a personal relationship with the contractor but was familiar with the company’s work.

PolitiFact left a message with Atlantic Industrial Coatings and did not receive a response.

Trump offered different versions of his ties to the entrepreneur:

April 23 video: “I said, what we’re going to do is I’m going to call these three people who worked for me in the past, who did swimming pools.” At another event the same day, Trump said he told Doug Burgum, the Interior secretary: “I have a guy who is amazing at building swimming pools. “Sir, we can do something about this.” He said, it’s perfect, actually. He said: “It’s in really bad shape and it’s in a terrible state. » » White House Small Business Summit on May 4: “So I have some really good entrepreneurs, some good ones, one or two in particular. And I sent the two, actually, the three best ones. I said, “Do me a favor, guys, go take a look at the reflecting pool that’s between Lincoln and Washington, the beautiful, what should be beautiful reflecting pool.” Social Truth post from May 12: “In addition, I did not entrust the contract, unlike “Interior”, to a contractor that I did not know and that I have never used before.

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