President Donald Trump traveled to Wisconsin on Friday, where he went on a ramble about cleaning up Washington, D.C. and renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool—then struggled to remember the word “monument” at an event that was supposed to be focused on farmers.
The president, 79, was seated with a group of farmers and GOP members of Congress in front of a crowd in Chippewa Falls for the event, which more closely resembled a Trump rally—but with him seated in front of a John Deere tractor.
Just over 15 minutes into his meandering address, the president started talking about fixing 22 fountains in Washington, D.C. and even pulled up some printed images in an attempt to wow the crowd.
“We’re just off a very big success in Washington, D.C.,” Trump explained. “It doesn’t sound like much, but Washington, D.C. was not properly managed or kept. We had 22 fountains, none of them worked for the last 50 years, none of them.”
As he spoke, the president reached down and held up an image he had printed out showing a statue that had been cleaned up. As he showed it off, he commented on the small printout and how he had done it the “inexpensive way.”
“Why should we have a screen? Everybody here has good vision,” he said, holding the printout. “I want to show you something. Look at this. I’m going to show you the cheap way. OK? We don’t want to bring screens. It costs too much money.”
“Look at that, that’s before and after. Look at that,” Trump said, waving the letter-sized piece of paper in the air, showing an image similar to one he posted this week on Truth Social. “That’s our nation’s capital.”
The president then moved on to bragging about the renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which he repeatedly called a “pond,” as those seated around him looked on quietly.
“Then we had the reflecting pond, 2,500 feet, massive, longer than a building. We have, we have a stat here that’s sort of great,” Trump said.
As he spoke, he showed off a small printout similar to the poster he’s been pulling out in the Oval Office that compares the length of the Reflecting Pool to some of the tallest skyscrapers in the U.S.
“Can you guys see this? Okay, because I’m too cheap to put up like a projector. Look, so that’s the pond if it were standing up,” Trump said as he held the roughly eight-by-11-inch piece of paper to the crowd. “Here’s your Sears Tower, Empire State Building, World Trade Center. Look, it’s double or triple the size in terms of area.”
The president then went on to share the story he’s repeated multiple times in recent months about renovating the Reflecting Pool and calling his “pool guy.”
“So being a very good builder, I said, ‘You know what? I built a lot of swimming pools, many, many swimming pools.’ Every time I do a development, I do swimming pools. I know more about swimming pools,” Trump said.
“I said, ‘Why can’t we put the wonderful material, which is thick, pasty, beautiful like rubber, but industrial strength? Why can’t we use it? And let’s pick the color blue from the American flag,’ which is what we did, and that is the most beautiful thing that you’ve ever seen,” Trump continued.
As he held up his small paper printouts, his supporters in the crowd cheered.
“I mean, look at that. Just opened yesterday, just, we just opened it,” Trump held up another image showing the Reflecting Pool at night.
The president then began talking about the pool, which rests between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, but he appeared to struggle to come up with the word “monument.”
“Can you imagine? Washington between Lincoln, think of Washington, DC between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington,” Trump said, grasping. “Just think about this, you know, that beautiful spire in honor of the great George Washington and the beautiful Lincoln Memorial?”
“So, between there, thousands of feet long, it was built in 1922 and to be honest, it never really worked. It leaked like a sieve because it was stone and concrete.”
The president went on to retell the group about calling in his “pool person” for some “good ideas.”
“We sprayed it and put down beautiful, like a pool coating,” Trump said. “It’ll last maybe 50 to 100 years.”
The president then went back to showing off his printouts and bragging about how it was reflecting, which was never the problem with the Reflecting Pool.
Trump then repeated his boast about fixing the 22 fountains before launching into another ramble about making Washington, D.C. safe, as the group of Wisconsin farmers looked on.
