The Daily Show’s Josh Johnson thinks the key to solving Trump’s pool slime problem has been right in front of him all along.
President Trump announced his plan in April to turn the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool “American flag blue,” and has so far failed spectacularly. Trump is scrambling to remove the pool’s massive algae bloom before the Fourth of July, now less than two weeks away.
Trump has made unproven claims that the pool’s algae has been caused by vandals pouring chemicals into the pool or cutting open a “290- or 300-foot slit” in the floor liner.
Trump has also threatened to sue media outlets for reporting negatively on the botched renovation and has sent National Guard members and U.S. Park Police to the pool site to crack down on the alleged vandalism.
Johnson jokingly argued in his Tuesday monologue that there’s another way to combat the algae that Trump’s been neglecting.
“You have got to chill,” Johnson told Trump. “People are not shanking the pool at night. Also, algae can’t be that hard to get rid of. I mean, damn, you got one of the biggest algae eaters in your cabinet.”
Johnson showed a picture of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who The Daily Show has frequently mocked for his unconventional eating habits.
In January, Kennedy admitted to sneaking his own sauerkraut into restaurants, and he has long supported drinking raw milk despite its health risks.
Johnson joked about Kennedy, “Send him down to the pool, he’ll be like, ‘Mmm, looks like soup.’”
The federal government has awarded two no-bid contracts to work on the pool, one of which was a $1.7 million contract to Greenwater Services. The company is owned partially by John J. Cafaro, a Republican donor, Trump friend, and convicted felon.
Cafaro told reporters last week that his relationship to Trump had nothing to do with how Greenwater Services landed its contract.
“[Trump] is my friend and he doesn’t know a thing about it,” Cafaro said. “I would never talk to him about it.”
Despite the problems with the algae, blue paint flakes, and dead wildlife found in the Reflecting Pool, Trump posted positively about the project on his Truth Social account Tuesday morning.
“The Reflecting Pool is as beautiful as it can be,” Trump wrote, before noting, “We will drain some of the water, either immediately before or after the Fourth of July, to do the permanent repair.”
