President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration has begun resurfacing the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with an industrial-grade, swimming-pool-style coating in a color he described as “American flag blue.”
The President, speaking unprompted during an Oval Office event focused on lowering drug prices, said contractors had started cleaning the granite stones and laying the new surface atop the existing stone flooring. He estimated the project would cost about $1.5 million and take roughly a week, though he has also described the price tag as falling between $1.5 million and $2 million and the timeline as two weeks.
“You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump said, holding up pictures of the construction process, per CBS News. “Much better than it ever was, actually.”
Trump said he was moved to act after a friend from Germany visited the site and described the water as “filthy, dirty … disgusting looking.” He inspected the pool himself with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Secret Service agents in tow, calling it a “dirty, disgusting place” that “leaked like a sieve,” Artnet reported.
The President rejected what he said was a prior proposal from the Biden administration that would have cost $301 million and taken three to 3.5 years. Instead, he reportedly contacted contractors he knew from his real estate days — “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools” — and opted for the quick overlay. He initially considered a turquoise shade “like in the Bahamas” but was persuaded by the contractor to choose “American flag blue” as more appropriate.
“I think it’s a great business story,” Trump said.
The Reflecting Pool, designed by architect Henry Bacon as part of the early 20th-century McMillan Plan, stretches about 2,000 feet long and 160 feet wide. Built in the 1920s, it has hosted landmark events, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington. It was last comprehensively renovated in 2012 at a cost of $34 million using Obama-era stimulus funds, with the National Park Service performing additional work and periodic drainings since to remove algae, garbage, and goose droppings.
Trump first floated addressing the pool’s condition in November, posting a video on social media showing garbage near the surface and writing: “Study it hard because you won’t be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!”
Earlier this month, Trump said he and Burgum would fix it “at a fraction of the cost” of initial estimates.
The project is the latest in a series of changes Trump has pursued for Washington landmarks since returning to office. Those include tearing down the White House East Wing for a new ballroom funded by private donations, paving over the Rose Garden, adding a “Presidential Walk of Fame” to the West Wing, proposing a 250-foot triumphal arch on Columbia Island, overhauling the Kennedy Center, and painting the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white.
On the Reflecting Pool work, former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversaw earlier cleanings and renovations, said process matters.
“I do think the process is important here,” Salazar said, per The Washington Post. “There’s so many people that have worked very hard on making the National Mall what it is today … there may have been input, but I haven’t heard of it.”
Charles A. Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, warned that the blue tint could alter the site’s intended solemn character.
“A blue-tinted basin risks reading more like a large lap pool than the solemn and hallowed visual and spatial connection between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial,” Birnbaum wrote in an email, the Post reported.
Trump posted photos on Friday showing the work underway and has continued promoting it on social media.
“Renovations are underway! Thank you @POTUS for investing in our capital. The Reflecting Pool is about to look better than ever!” Burgum posted.
Renovations are underway!
Thank you @POTUS for investing in our capital. The Reflecting Pool is about to look better than ever! pic.twitter.com/W983aUAQGL
— Secretary Doug Burgum (@SecretaryBurgum) April 24, 2026
The President said the new surface should last 40 or 50 years and would be ready in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations on July 4.
