Fact-checking Trump on Reflecting Pool renovation timeline, cost, contractor relationship – KSBW
President Donald Trump has long leaned into his background as a real estate developer. Almost a year and a half into his second term, he has been focused increasingly on efforts that will leave a lasting physical imprint on the nation’s capital.
This story was originally published on PolitiFact.
He’s torn down the White House’s East Wing in an effort to build a ballroom, paved over the White House Rose Garden, initiated plans for a 250-foot triumphal arch, renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in his honor (and later closed it for renovations), and asked for designs to renovate public golf courses within the city.
In recent weeks, Trump has also ordered a snap renovation of the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool, which spans the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.
The Reflecting Pool renovation has garnered the most attention for Trump’s intention to paint the bottom “American Flag Blue.”
“I love construction, it’s very exciting,” he said in a May 27 Cabinet meeting, noting his love of building swimming pools. He called the renovation “a really important thing” and said he might launch a renovation of the nearby World War II Memorial fountain.
Critics have assailed the Reflecting Pool changes, saying it would turn one of the nation’s hallowed monuments into a swimming pool.
“The Reflecting Pool is part of one of the most iconic designed landscapes in the world, and has defined the visual and experiential character of the nation’s capital for over a century,” wrote plaintiffs in a lawsuit that seeks to stop the project. The plaintiffs, an organization of landscape architects, said proceeding with the renovation would create a “permanent blemish on the National Mall.” The case is pending.
Since launching the project, Trump has exaggerated the pool’s size, the renovation timeline and costs, and changed his tune on the central contractor. Here are fact-checks of a few recent Trump statements about the project.
This is exaggerated both ways.
The rectangular pool is 2,028 feet long, which would rank it fourth in the world if it were a skyscraper, according to the Skyscraper Center’s list of tallest buildings. First is Burj Khalifa in Dubai at 2,717 feet, followed by Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur at 2,227 feet, and Shanghai Tower in Shanghai at 2,073 feet.
The pool is 167 feet wide.
Trump notoriously offers two-week estimates that don’t check out. That’s happening here, too.
As of this writing, it’s been three weeks since Trump’s first estimate of Reflecting Pool updates, and the space is not open. But Trump said more work was done than initially envisioned.
During a visit to the Reflecting Pool on the afternoon of May 27, the full length of the pool was covered in black, with trucks and machinery visible and making noise. The pool perimeter was encircled by black fencing.
On May 18, the Trump administration said in a court filing that “the project will conclude, and the pool will be re-filled, in the coming weeks.” In the May 27 Cabinet meeting, Trump said, “We are probably 70% finished with it” and said it would open “in a couple of weeks.”
“We decided to do much more than we originally planned,” Trump said. “I thought I was just going to do the surface, but we said, the problem is the outer ring looks pretty bad too, where you walk on. So we sandblasted that.”
Many people who have embarked on their own remodeling will relate to this reality: The costs of the project have multiplied.
Trump said on May 7 about the cost of the reflecting pool, “We had estimates to fix it of about $355 million and it was going to take 3.5 years, you can see by the size of it. And so we’re going to be able to do it for about ($1.8 million), and it’s going to take one week.”
The New York Times reported that in April, the federal government gave a no-bid contract, invoking an exemption to competitive bidding intended for urgent situations. Trump wants the project completed for the July 4 250th anniversary celebrations.
The Times reported in May that the cost rose to $13.1 million, adding $6.2 million. Federal contract records show an Interior Department award to Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings to paint the pool.
Trump has acknowledged the increased costs, saying it’s become a bigger project. “I originally thought I’d do it for $2 million or $3 million, just do a base,” Trump said May 21. “But now we’re fixing up the exterior of it we’re doing. So, we’ll probably be in it for less than $20 million.”
We asked the Trump administration for documents showing a previous estimate of $355 million and did not get a response to that question. Instead, an Interior Department spokesperson responded with criticism of former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The Obama administration spent $35 million, a federal contract showed, trying to resolve problems with the pool including leaks and algae.This effort failed to resolve those problems; it was still green and leaks continued..
Chuck Sams, director of the National Park Service under Biden, told CNN that the service had received an estimate “above $100 million” but did not move forward.
Trump has changed his story about whether he knew the contractor.
The Interior Department spokesperson did not directly respond to our question about whether Trump knew Atlantic Industrial Coatings and said the company selected was the only one that had the expertise, staff and materials to complete the project on time.
The White House told PolitiFact that Trump does not have a personal relationship with the contractor but was familiar with the company’s work.
PolitiFact left a message with Atlantic Industrial Coatings and did not hear back.
Trump has offered differing accounts of his ties to the contractor:
Sources
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