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Trump claims vandals damaged D.C. Reflecting Pool, and says it will be drained again
President Trump has claimed that United States Park Police have made several arrests in connection with what he described as deliberate sabotage of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington D.C., which underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation earlier this year.
"The United States Park Police have arrested multiple individuals for vandalizing our Nations magnificent Reflecting Pool," Trump wrote on Truth Social late Saturday evening. "These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments. Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair."
In a second post on Saturday, Trump described the alleged damage in greater detail, saying more arrests had followed. He provided no evidence for any of his claims about the nature of the damage, and neither the Park Police nor any other law enforcement agency had publicly confirmed any arrests as of the time of publication.
On Friday, Maryland resident and former Olympian David Hearn was arrested and charged with destroying government property. Hearn says he merely reached into the pool to touch one of the already dislodged blue pieces, and denies the charge.
Trump said that the pool would be drained and repaired quickly, and framed the alleged vandalism as an affront to American history. "We met with contractors today, will probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs," he wrote. "What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly".
'A 250-foot long gash'
Trump described what he said was physical destruction to the pool's newly renovated lining. "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," he wrote Saturday. "They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool."
The president connected the alleged vandalism to the recent green color of the pool — again, without evidence. The pool turned green last week after being refilled following its renovation, in which its floor was repainted in a shade Trump calls "American flag blue."
Aquatic ecologists and pool specialists told NPR the discoloration was caused by a natural bloom of algae from the genus Desmodesmus — a process scientists say is common in shallow, sun-exposed bodies of water, and one that may have been accelerated by the renovation disturbing the nutrient balance of the water.
A George Mason University professor who took water samples confirmed the algae was not toxic.
A renovation that grew in scope and cost
In April, Trump revealed his plans for the pool to be made "American flag blue," in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. The president also posted a fake image of himself and several of his administration officials in swimsuits, along with an unidentified woman in a bikini lounging in the water.
Trump defended the recent work in his Saturday post, writing: "The Reflecting Pool was never so beautiful as it was just one week ago, even going back to 1922 when it opened." The pool opened in 1923.
The renovation project expanded significantly beyond the initial public cost estimate of $2 million, to more than $14 million by the time work was completed. A Virginia-based contractor received the no-bid contract. A separate Ohio-based company was paid approximately $1.7 million for nanobubble ozone technology deployed to treat the algae bloom.
The project was also the subject of a lawsuit filed in May by the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit that argued the administration had bypassed required historic preservation reviews. A federal judge had not yet ruled on the case by the time the administration notified the court that work had been completed.
The White House has also provided no evidence that vandalism caused the pool's discoloration, or any of the structural damage the president has described.
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that multiple people had been arrested in connection with alleged vandalism of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, including an Olympic canoeist, as the administration’s $14 million project to renovate the site has faced multiple setbacks.
In a pair of posts Saturday on Truth Social, Trump, without evidence, blamed vandals for the damage to the pool and said the alleged crimes could warrant “years in jail.”
“Who would do such a thing? These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments,” Trump said in one post.
The 2,030-foot pool, which sits at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, has been beset by an algae bloom as workers refilled it after they gave the floor a new “American flag blue” coat of sealant. That coating has begun to peel off, with chunks appearing above the surface of the water.
Trump said that he had met with contractors Saturday and that much of the water might have to be drained to repair the pool’s floor.
“What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly,” Trump said in the second post.
“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,” he added. “They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.”
The renovation has been a pet project of the president’s and coincides with a broader effort to beautify Washington for the country’s 250th anniversary.
Despite efforts to clean the algae, the bloom and peeling coating continue to draw the attention of onlookers visiting the pool and surrounding monuments.
One of those onlookers was David “Davey” Hearn, a three-time Olympic canoeist, who told NBC News he was arrested and detained for five hours Friday after touching a piece of the detached coating.
Hearn, 67, said he made his way to the pool at the end of a bike ride “to satisfy my curiosity as a citizen of what was happening with all the algae and the peeling blue coating that I’ve been seeing in the news.”
“It was kind of stiff, stiff, but flexible, pretty rubbery. Didn’t feel brittle in any way,” Hearn said. “I didn’t remove, tear, rip, break or destroy any of it. The condition of the reflecting pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there.”
Hearn said the National Guard member who arrested him was unable to answer which federal law he had violated. The National Guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“All of a sudden they were handcuffing me behind my back, and they hadn’t really told me what I was charged with,” Hearn said.
Earlier Saturday, Trump shared an article on social media about Hearn’s arrest.
The U.S. Park Police did not immediately respond to a request for information on any arrests.
As workers made their initial renovations in recent weeks, Trump mocked his predecessors over the past condition of the pool. Last month, Trump drove to the reflecting pool as it was under renovation to showcase his repairs.
“It never had the color people wanted, but now it’s going to have the great color,” he said at the time.
On Friday, workers could be seen scrubbing the pool as algae once again turned the water green.
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Algae clouded Trump's vision for the Reflecting Pool. But scientists aren't surprised
Algae clouded Trump’s vision for the Reflecting Pool. But scientists aren’t surprised
WASHINGTON — The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is once again making headlines, this week for turning green.
The Washington, D.C. landmark was refilled with water earlier this month after President Trump had its neutral grey bottom repainted "American flag blue." The multi-million dollar project produced subtle results in the eyes of many observers, even as Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum — whose agency managed the renovation — touted its success.
In recent days, however, the pool has taken on a verdant hue — the result of algae blooms that experts say are to be expected in these conditions.
"It's called 'New Pond Syndrome,'" says Steve Goodale, a Canadian swimming pool specialist known online as "Swimming Pool Steve." "It's a known thing that happens when you take a natural, clear body of water like this that sits in an open air environment and you try to start it up, very often you end up with green water almost immediately."
Goodale says the process took longer — a matter of days — to unfold in this case likely due to the sheer size of the pool, which measures 2,030 feet long and has a surface area of approximately 338,000 square feet.
"Excellent conditions" for algae growth
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, took water samples from the pool on Tuesday. She confirmed the algae belongs to the genus Desmodesmus, which she said is "growing in excessive amounts" but is not toxic or harmful.
Christova says this kind of common green algae is found all over the region, especially this time of year. The reflecting pool in particular provides "excellent conditions" for algae growth, she said: shallow, stagnant water, strong sunlight and no shade.
"It could happen every single summer," she added. "But it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process."
Christova said last month's renovations may have affected the balance of nutrients in the pool, potentially accelerating the algae blooms. Goodale similarly views the resurfacing as one of several contributing factors.
"The new, darker interior surface is going to absorb more sunlight," Goodale says. "It is going to result in water that's warmer, and that ultimately is going to lead to more prolific algae growth."
The Trump administration has said the algae came from residual material in supply lines that had lain dormant for weeks. Their growth was likely exacerbated by the extreme temperatures that hit D.C. last week, bringing heat index values to 95 degrees and above.
Algae has resurfaced in the reflecting pool periodically over the years — including immediately after it reopened from its last major renovation in 2012, forcing the National Park Service to drain it, refill it and recalibrate its ozone level. And in 2019, crews had to drain four million gallons from the pool to fix a broken water line that had algae growing in it.
An Interior Department spokesperson told NPR over email that algae and other contaminants have "long plagued the Reflecting Pool since 1922," pointing to the Obama-era renovation as an example.
"Unlike under Obama and Biden, the National Park Service is actually maintaining the beautifully completed Reflecting Pool," they added.
Responding with tiny bubbles and big vacuums
The Trump administration is using a mix of mitigation strategies, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae.
The Interior Department says hydrogen peroxide is a "milder treatment than chlorine and is used in spas and specialty pools like natural swimming pools," adding "there are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment."
Workers are also deploying what the department calls "high-tech nanobubble ozone technology" to neutralize algae and other pathogens in the pool. The department says that approach is validated by several universities and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
Those ozone bubbles are so tiny the human eye can't even see them, Goodale says.
"The best way to describe it is that the bubbles are neutrally buoyant, so they won't just rise to the surface and disappear readily," he explains. "They can last for weeks, if not months in the water, doing their oxidizing thing and keeping the algae at bay."
'A monumental effort'
Goodale says it's more complicated than treating the average backyard swimming pool, since the reflecting pool — despite its name — is actually more akin to a "manmade shallow lake." He says it's hard to predict just how long it will take to completely solve the algae problem, calling it "a monumental effort, literally."
The Interior Department posted on X Wednesday that the nanobubble technology had "very effectively killed the algae," and National Park Service crews would spend several days vacuuming up the dead algae from the bottom of the pool.
But as of Thursday morning, much of the pool — especially in the center — was still bright green.
Work continued on both ends of the pool. Nanobubble machines deposited their tubes into the water, as mobile vacuuming systems known as "trash pumps" hummed loudly from the shore. Handfuls of workers stood either in the pool or on the edge maneuvering long-handled vacuums back and forth. Their contents, including pistachio-colored water, poured out of hoses laying in the nearby grass.
The work zones were marked off by orange cones, but passersby walking the length of the pool appeared relatively unfazed. Some stopped to peer down and snap pictures of the water itself — including sections of paint that had visibly peeled off — while others were more focused on getting a photo of the Washington Monument in the background.
Loay Hidmi was walking deliberately along the edge of the pool closest to the Lincoln Memorial, hands clasped behind his back, looking over the ledge. The relatively new D.C. resident is a civil engineer who specializes in water treatment, and has been coming by the pool all week to see the progress for himself. He estimates it's about 80% of the way there.
"I'm taking pictures of it … for the last week and I can see the gradual change," he said. "So I'm hopeful. But we'll have to see if it gets sustained."
What happens next?
Hidmi worries that the algae could come back, given the favorable conditions posed by the sunny, shallow pool.
He acknowledges that's mostly an aesthetic concern, given how much the administration has just spent on repainting the pool, but says it also raises questions about their process.
"In water systems, when you fix something, you need to look at the step before it and the step after," he said.
Goodale agrees. He says that when a water system is taken offline, the pipes still remain full of water — "they don't just gravity-drain away" — and need to be flushed out before any refilling. And he says eliminating algae is no substitute for dealing with underlying filtration issues.
"That's like the equivalent of mowing the lawn when perhaps it needs to be something else that addresses the source nitrates and phosphorus, so that it's more like pulling the weeds out by the root," he says.
In the meantime, Christova, the algae expert, would like to see the water monitored weekly.
"If we don't have any control over algal growth, we don't know what is growing," she said, adding that not all types of algae are as harmless as the one currently blooming in the pool.
When asked about plans for maintenance and algae prevention, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told NPR: "Thanks to President Trump, new lining and industrial grade materials will permanently seal the Reflecting Pool, which previously leaked 16 million gallons per year and wasted countless taxpayer dollars."
Even after the Obama-era renovation, the reflecting pool suffered from broken pipes
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Trump says he will visit India as frosty relationship with Modi thaws
US President Donald Trump promised to visit India during a bilateral meeting at the G7 summit in France, signalling a thawing of relations between the two countries.
Trump said it would take place "sometime in the future", adding India and the US were close to agreeing a trade deal.
Relations between the two countries came under strain after Trump announced his plans to impose tariffs on India last year.
The killing of three Indian sailors by the US military last week further complicated the relationship.
The sailors were killed in the Gulf of Oman in a strike after the US military targeted a tanker which it accused of violating its blockade on Iranian ports.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the safety of Indian sailors working in the Strait of Hormuz with Trump during their meeting at the G7 summit.
The pair also discussed their efforts to reach a trade deal - negotiations which were set back by a recent US announcement about new import taxes on countries judged not to be doing enough to tackle forced labour, including India.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump called Modi a "tough negotiator", and pledged to visit the country soon.
Trump has been expected to visit India for several months now, potentially as part of a Quad meeting with Japan and Australia.
Questioned on the US-India defence relationship, Trump said America would "help" India if they were "attacked".
Referencing Modi, he said: "If anybody attacks that man, we're going to be there... Now, if there's a new leader, I'm not sure about it."
The meeting followed a period of heightened tension between the two nations. Delhi summoned a senior US diplomat twice last week following the killings of the Indian sailors and strikes on other tankers with Indian crew.
Domestically, Modi has been criticised by opposition parties for not directly condemning the US's actions and they have demanded that he raise the matter with Trump.
In a speech to G7 leaders on Tuesday, Modi mentioned the conflict in the Middle East, adding that "several Indian civilians" had lost their lives and that the safety of seafarers should be ensured.
"Today the world does not suffer from a shortage of resources; it suffers from a shortage of trust. And the future of our partnerships depends on building this trust," the prime minister said in remarks that some commentators in India linked to the meeting with Trump.
India imports about 90% of its oil and has been badly hit by the war in Iran and the closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies are normally transported.
Even if the strait reopens soon, global oil and gas supplies could take months to stabilise.
The meeting at the G7 marked a significant tonal shift in the relationship between Trump and Modi.
In February last year, Modi travelled to Washington for a meeting with Trump at the White House. Since then, they had several phone calls but Wednesday's meeting was their first scheduled interaction since Modi's US visit.
Officials are set to meet in Delhi next week to negotiate what India's commerce secretary has described as the "final touches" to the US-India trade deal.
India was among the first countries to open trade talks with the US last year, but the process has proven complicated.
At one point, the US imposed tariffs of up to 50% on some Indian goods before cutting them to 18% after the two countries agreed on an interim trade deal in February. The rates are currently at 10% after the US Supreme Court struck down many of Trump's tariffs, ruling them "illegal".
It is not yet clear when or if the proposed new tariffs on concerning forced labour will come into effect.
Over the past year, Delhi was also irritated by Trump's claims that he brokered an India-Pakistan ceasefire after a brief conflict in 2025 and his offer to mediate on Kashmir - a disputed region claimed by both countries.
Delhi rejects third-party mediation on Kashmir, and Modi "strongly" communicated this to Trump last year. In the months since then, Pakistan has managed to keep Trump on side, even playing the role of intermediary between Washington and Tehran in efforts to secure a peace deal.
Other sources of tension include the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration and restrictions on H-1B visas that have long been a pathway for skilled Indians to work in the US.
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