Interior Secretary Doug Burgum lost his cool when asked about the state of the Reflecting Pool following weeks of sludge, peeling, and dead ducklings.
Burgum, 69, appeared on State of the Union Sunday, and was questioned about the return of algae and imminent repairs despite Trump’s “fantastic” $16 million renovation.
“Well, the algae is all gone. I mean, that was a momentary thing. As the—as it was being refilled, there was algae in the pipes,” Burgum argued.
Claiming that the Pool’s “new technology” had made it “completely clean and clear,” Burgum said that they’d found an “actual solution” to stop the slime for good.
He then complained: “It keeps being reported that this was paint. It was not paint! This was an industrial liner that was put into the pool for the very first time. Multiple layers fixing two-and-a-half miles of expansion.”
As host Dana Bash asked why the liner had “peeled” off, Burgum raged: “It didn’t! It didn‘t peel off.”
The multimillionaire angrily repeated Trump’s favored conspiracy theory that any issues with the pool are the fault of sabotaging radical liberals; not shoddy work.
“There was vandalism. There was boxcutters. There have been seven arrests. There was people literally trying to destroy part of a monument.
“The Reflecting Pool is not just a pool on the Mall. It is part of the Lincoln Memorial. And if anybody says that they‘re going to go and vandalize that, it‘s no different than if someone was throwing paint.”
“You’re 100 percent sure that what happened with the liner was vandalism? You can prove it,” Bash asked.
“Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We can. And we—as we drain it and we’ve got all the photographs we can see, I mean, there’s no possible way—” Burgum stated, with the CNN host interrupting to clarify: “Photographs of a person or people cutting a 300- or 350-foot gash in the bottom of the Reflecting Pool?”
Burgum immediately dodged the question and became defensive. “Dana, I’m not sure why you and others in the media think that you want to keep trying to question whether or not this is an industrial liner,” he spat.
The former North Dakota governor argued that “every farmer and rancher in America” could vouch for the strength of the lining, which “literally, literally, it would never just like peel off or fall off.”
“This is like a strong material and it‘s the size of eight football fields. And the only way you can end up with actual slices in one spot and not the other, is that someone physically cut it,” he said.
Assuring viewers that the pool—closed on the Fourth of July despite plans to open on that day—was not leaking, Burgum maintained of the swampy memorial: “It’s finally been fixed by President Trump and the the American flag blue is working perfectly.
“And again, it’s beyond me. Why? I mean, the real scandal is about the fact that the state of our capital was in such total disrepair that some people—no one was reporting about.”
