CNN cast doubt on one of President Donald Trump’s central claims about the damage done to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in a new report.
Showing footage of the pool, which was drained on Monday after weeks of quick-fix repairs failed to resolve the pool’s myriad problems, CNN host John King noted on Tuesday night that it was not immediately obvious where the pool had been slashed.
“CNN could not readily see evidence of that large gash President Trump claims vandals cut into the pool, causing its liner to peel,” King said.
President Trump has repeatedly insisted that part of the pool’s problems stemmed from acts of vandalism, doing so again as recently as Monday.
“We drained the beautiful ‘Reflecting Pool’ today in order to fix the scars and damage that was done by the Vandals two weeks ago,” the 80-year-old wrote on Truth Social.
“The slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs,” he added, explaining that this meant the National Park Service had to drain the pool in order to fix the water-tight basin.
“It will be refilled and put back into service soon,” the president assured his supporters before once again calling for the vandals responsible to be punished.
Referencing the president’s Truth Social post, King noted that 300 yards is significantly longer than the 250-foot cut Trump claimed had been made last month.
“They took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on June 20.
The segment then crossed to Tom Foreman, who was reporting live from the Reflecting Pool. Foreman said there was no sign of any of the vandalism Trump has claimed occurred.
“There’s no sign of anything like that, there’s just nothing like that. Not only is that true, but the president himself made such wildly conflicting statements about this new liner that it calls into question any complaint of damage or vandalism now,” Foreman told King.
CNN then played a clip of the president claiming that the pool lining could not be cut by a knife because it was “so strong, so powerful,” followed immediately by a clip of him talking about the gash supposedly made by a box cutter or knife.
“In May, he said you could not damage it with a knife, and in June he said, it was obviously done with a knife,” Foreman noted.
“Again, John, there’s just nothing here that proves that, or even looks like that happened.“
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Problems began when the government awarded a no-bid contract to renovate the pool to a Virginia company that had previously worked on a swimming pool at one of Trump’s golf clubs.
While the project was initially estimated to cost $1.8 million, costs ballooned to over $14 million. Far from looking blue for the Fourth, the pool turned a deep green due to a persistent algal bloom that did not respond to attempts to address it.
The failed renovations even came with a body count, after three dead ducks were found floating in the pool and a nearby pond last month.
The president has repeatedly blamed vandals for the pool’s problems and has bragged about the number of arrests made by authorities patrolling the area, including one former Olympian.
“Many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote on June 20.
“What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly.”
