Donald Trump

Reflecting Pool Debacle Is a Shorthand for Trump's Failing Second Term

The president is forcing his biggest supporters to choke down his incompetence and delusions like so much algae.

Nick Gillespie | 6.25.2026 5:30 PM

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(Midjourney )

There's no question that the debacle surrounding President Donald Trump's rehabbing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool doesn't rise to the level of, say, his choice to wage war with Iran, his dumb and legally challenged imposition of tariffs, or his insistence on socializing businesses.

But it's equally true that this fetid little episode, not yet fully resolved, provides a shorthand of everything cloudy and foul-smelling about his so-far terrible second term, especially his unwillingness to own his failures (such as admitting he lost the 2020 election). Jimmy Carter fought killer rabbits. Gerald Ford fell down staircases. And George H.W. Bush puked on foreign dignitaries. Trump is now fighting an algae bloom in such a way that he is becoming a laughingstock.

"You won't be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!," he declared triumphantly last fall on Truth Social when announcing plans for the job. It was supposed to cost just $1.5 million. This April, he bragged........

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