Donald Trump unloaded on The New York Times in a 400-word Truth Social post after publicly available federal spending records revealed the administration paid the president’s “pool guy” more than $13.1 million to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“The Failing New York Times, which is one of the worst newspapers anywhere in the World, and is losing subscribers on an hourly basis, is now at it again,” Trump wrote at 6:46 a.m. Tuesday.
He followed up his rant with an AI-generated image of former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi submerged in a sewage-filled reflecting pool with the caption “Dumacrats Love Sewage.”
Last month, Atlantic Industrial Coatings LLC was awarded a no-bid federal contract worth nearly $7 million for work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. But records show the company was awarded another $6.2 million last week.
Trump initially said the project could be done for $1.5 million. His administration is now spending more than $13.1 million on the project, with all funds directed to the Virginia-based company.
Records show the company was awarded more than $6.8 million on April 3 to “PAINT LINCOLN MEMORIAL POOL.” Another payment of $6.2 million was awarded May 8 under a “SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT FOR WORK WITHIN SCOPE,” records show.
The administration bypassed a typical competitive bid process by arguing that the need for renovations was so urgent that any delays would cause “serious injury” to the government, though it remains unclear what that “injury” entails.
Despite boasting of a “guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools up the road,” Trump said he didn’t know the contractor.
The Department of Interior awarded the contract to a company “I did not know, and have never used before,” he said.
The company has not previously held a federal contract.
Asked why the company received additional funding for the project, a spokesperson for the Department of Interior told The Independent the National Park Service “chose the best company to expedite the repair of the iconic Reflecting Pool” before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations on July 4.
The project also includes construction of a “state-of-the-art ozone nanobubbler filtration system” and a “dedicated crew who will maintain the grounds from wildlife,” according to the Interior Department.
The Independent has requested comment from Atlantic Industrial Coatings LLC and The New York Times.
The reflecting pool saw major renovations during the Obama administration between 2010 and 2012 at a cost of roughly $38 million.
But Trump accused The New York Times of “trying to justify Obama and Biden’s expensively botched attempt at fixing the long broken, unsightly, and unsanitary” landmark before he cast himself as a hero who saved it.
“Now, along comes ‘TRUMP,’ who is asked by many patriots if I can fix it,” he wrote. “The answer is a resounding, YES, and for a ‘tiny’ fraction of the cost!”
“Instead of taking 4 years to build, at a cost, granite pavers and all, of 400 Million Dollars, we could construct a far superior Reflecting Pool for 5 or 6 Million Dollars, and could complete the project in 2 weeks rather than 4 years. What a difference in time and money, and for a far superior end result!” he wrote.
Trump, however, told reporters at the White House last month that the renovation could be done in a week for “about a million and a half dollars.”
Workers are in the process of repainting the floor of the iconic 2,030-foot pool “American flag blue” under a suite of renovation projects in the nation’s capital.
The project is expected to be completed by May 22, according to federal documents.
Speaking from the Oval Office last month, Trump said the paint job was his idea.
“I said, ‘Well, what about turquoise, like in the Bahamas?’” Trump said he asked the contractor. “He said, ‘Well, this is Washington, sir. We can give you turquoise, but why don’t you try — like, we have a color, it’s called American flag blue.’”
Despite touting his own project weeks earlier, Trump assailed The New York Times’s David Fahrenthold for describing it as a “paint job.”
“This is not just a paint job, like lowlife ‘reporter,’ David Fahrenthold, of the NYT so inaccurately and maliciously stated, it is a deeply complicated work of smart and beautiful construction,” Trump wrote.
“It won’t leak, it will shine, and be the pride of Washington D.C. for decades to come. I saved more than 390 Million Dollars, and 4 years of no ‘mess,’ and was, of course, given no credit by the biased New York Times,” he said.
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