President Trump went off on the New York Times in a lengthy Truth Social post on Friday over its attacks on Trump’s renovation of the nearly half-mile-long reflecting pool, which sits between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.
The outlet has written several hit pieces on the project to restore the filthy green water basin, built in the 1920s, which has been marred by issues, including sinking and leaking into the swamp beneath. “Hundreds of Millions of Dollars have been spent throughout the years trying to fix it, and even from its inception, in 1922, it never really worked!” Trump noted.
Still, a recent New York Times piece attacks Trump over his $13.1 million budget and the so-called “lucrative contracts” awarded to “hand-picked vendors.”
But according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the Trump Derangement Syndrome-infected Times ignores the scope of the project to properly seal the pool with crack and leak-proof materials for the expansion joints, which will withstand the years and changing temperatures that come with the seasons. “This is something the Obama administration didn’t understand,” Burgum said, adding that Obama “wasted millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars” with a failed project in 2012, which had a massive cost of $34 million, more than twice what Trump is paying. Notably, Obama’s botched repairs took nearly two years to complete, while Trump’s will be completed by July 4 after starting in April.
The “Obama-era errors that failed at the cost of millions for the American taxpayer,” Burgum said, caused the pool to continue leaking a whopping 16 million gallons of water per year.
“Finally, we have professionals doing the right job for a tiny fraction of the money that has been spent, and The Failing New York Times continues to demean the work of these wonderful, talented, and proud construction professionals that are bringing this over 2,000 foot long pool, the largest in the World, BACK TO LIFE!” Trump said. “It is happening before your very eyes, and will soon be completed at a much higher level, and after doing much more work than was originally anticipated.”
Trump previously said they had to remove “eleven or twelve truckloads of filth out of the water” when a reporter asked why he would bother cleaning the monument.
Along with screenshots of an X thread by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, correcting the record, Trump slammed the Times, saying the failed news organization “should spend more of its energy on fixing its broken ‘shop,’ and celebrating America’s Greatness.”
Hellbound and Down 