President Trump honored the crew who renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, thanking them in the Oval Office.
Special Assistant and Communications Advisor Margo Martin shared a video of the event on social media, writing, “Every man received a signed hat and a presidential challenge coin!”
“The Great Reflecting Pool, that stretches between The Lincoln Memorial and The Washington Monument, just opened to ‘rave reviews,’ but, maliciously or not, some say, like The Washington Post, it was a ‘paint job.’ This was not a paint job,” Trump wrote on Truth Social upon the project’s completion. “This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years, applied by very talented people, many of whom came from the Great State of Oklahoma, where I won 77 out of 77 Counties, THREE TIMES, the only President to ever do so. The material is thick, strong, flexible, and has a natural, beautiful color, the dark blue of the American Flag!”
A preservation group filed a lawsuit over the renovations last month, arguing that the blue paint alters the site’s “historic character.”
“The dark grey, achromatic basin was not incidental to the design. It was the design,” the lawsuit states. “The 1999 National Park Service Cultural Landscape Report for the Lincoln Memorial Grounds specifically identifies the dark-tiled basin as a character-defining feature of the historic landscape, noting that ‘the dark color of the tile created the illusion of greater depth and a more profound reflection.’”
“The vivid blue coating will fundamentally alter the visual and experiential character of the pool and the broader Lincoln Memorial Grounds landscape,” the group argued. “The new coloration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year.”
