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Vandalism at the Reflecting Pool? Yes—It Was Committed by Donald Trump

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22.06.2026

Vandalism at the Reflecting Pool? Yes—It Was Committed by Donald Trump

Sadly, the historic water feature is a reflection—of the president’s bone-deep corruption and his administration’s neglect.

Add David Hearn to Donald Trump’s ever-growing list of enemies of the state. The Bethesda man was out for a bike ride in Washington, D.C., last Friday and decided to spin over to the Reflecting Pool see how its new, Trump-ordained “American flag blue” color struck him. He noticed that a piece of the new blue liner was partly detached from the pool’s bottom (it’s only 18 inches deep at the edges), and he reached down to see what it felt like, he told The Washington Post.

According to ESPN, Hearn said that he “briefly touched a chunk that was still attached to the side of the pool, then let go shortly after a park worker told him to.” Unhappily, a conservative journalist named Emily Miller—surely you haven’t forgotten her 2013 classic Emily Gets Her Gun: But Obama Wants to Take Yours—was on the scene, and she took a two-minute video of the 67-year-old Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic team canoe racer. Before he knew it, Park Police officers arrested him and charged him with destruction of government property. “I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn said. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

Trump posted on Saturday night about arrests of “multiple individuals for vandalizing our Nations [sic] magnificent Reflecting Pool.” The Post sought comment on this point from the Park Police but got no response.

You’d think a guy who just lost a war would........

© New Republic