Bill Maher has taken a brutal dig at President Donald Trump after his claims of vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool were outed as being bogus by one of his own appointees.
“He lost Jeanine Pirro,” Maher said, referring to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who dropped the prosecution of Olympic medalist David Hearn, 67, who had been arrested on an allegation that he vandalized the pool, turning it green with algae.
“Even she would not go along with his story about the reflecting pool, and she’s pretty far MAGA,” Maher added.
Pirro, 75, had initially echoed Trump’s claims, saying there was “tremendous evidence” that Hearn had vandalized the pool. But she later dropped the case after concluding that the damage was caused by a “flawed installation by the contractor” hired to renovate the pool.
The 80-year-old president was quick to turn on Pirro, a former Fox News host he appointed to the role, while continuing to defend the $16 million renovation he had touted for months. The project was supposed to turn the pool an American-flag blue, but instead left behind a green, slime-covered disaster.
The pool was drained in June, so crews could apply the new coating. When the water was returned, so did algae blooms that required hydrogen peroxide treatments. Sheets of paint also peeled off the surface.
Hearn was arrested on June 19 after stopping to inspect the troubled pool during a 52-mile bike ride. Prosecutors accused him of damaging government property, but Hearn insisted he was simply looking at the renovation gone wrong, saying he had only examined loose material that was already coming away from the surface and had no role in the damage.
According to Pirro’s filing, the damage stemmed from a rushed renovation schedule, with Trump’s insistence that the project be completed in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations on July 4 contributing to major construction failures.
On Monday, Trump accused Pirro of having “choked” and “folded like an umbrella” after she dropped the case—remarks Maher mocked.
Trump had repeatedly pushed the claim that vandals had slashed a massive section of the Reflecting Pool, at various points saying the damage stretched 350 feet and later revising that figure to 300 yards (roughly 900 feet). He also claimed the alleged vandals had used everything from a knife to a box cutter and razor.
But despite the president’s anger at Pirro, she did not fault Trump for pushing the claims. Instead, she blamed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, 70, for allegedly misleading the president about what had happened.
According to The New York Times, Pirro has privately called Burgum an “incompetent liar” over the reflecting pool debacle. During a tense Oval Office meeting Monday, she reportedly yelled at Burgum, accusing him of misleading Trump about the source of the damage to the algae-infested pool while armed with boxes of evidence to back up her case.
Sources told the Times that Trump appeared “considerably less angry” by the end of the meeting. But on Tuesday, he refused to say whether Pirro’s job was safe and continued pushing his claims that the pool had been vandalized.
Maher, meanwhile, had his own take on Trump’s outrage.
“He said, people get away with things, and it’s a disgrace. He was very wounded. He said, sometimes I wonder why I even bother making s--t up,” Maher said.
