JUST IN: How Donald Trump got caught in Washington’s reflecting pool
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Global attention remains focused on this evolving story as officials and analysts assess the broader implications.
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr uttered his famous “I have a dream…” in front of the reflecting pool of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. More than 60 years later, these waters steeped in history are at the heart of an improbable and nevertheless fierce political battle between the pro-Trump camp and the American president’s detractors over the color of the basin and the bill for “cleaning” work. At least five people were arrested for what Donald Trump called “acts of vandalism” against the reflecting pool, NBC News reported in an article published Monday, May 22. Blame the algae In the opposite camp, it is Donald Trump who is blamed. While pointing out the lack of evidence provided regarding possible acts of vandalism, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, estimated that “Donald Trump has just given Americans a perfect image of his presidency: families are drowning in bills, and Trump is drowning the reflecting pool in algae.” Because yes, the political scandal of the moment in the United States concerns a bed of algae lining the bottom of a basin 618 meters long and less than a meter deep. The greenish color given to the water by these plants attracts everyone. The “special correspondents” from the main national channels are dispatched to the site to question curious people who have come to “admire” the questionable result of a “cleaning” of the basin ordered at great expense by Donald Trump. To display this YouTube content, it is necessary to authorize audience measurement and advertising cookies. Accept Manage my choices An extension in your browser appears to be blocking the loading of the video player. To be able to watch this content, you must disable or uninstall it. Try again Cover image: White House: Donald Trump celebrates his 80th birthday with MMA fights © fr24 And beware of those who put even a finger in this water. A gesture which can lead to their arrest, as was the bitter experience of cyclist and former Olympic athlete David Hearn, arrested on Friday June 19 by the authorities for “vandalism” after dipping his hand in the water of the pool. He is awaiting trial. It’s hard to imagine that the reflecting pool affair would take on such dimensions when Donald Trump announced his intention to clean up the waters on April 9. “The President of the United States had no need to worry about this kind of detail. The entire crisis that results from this is 100% his fault,” underlines Rene Lindstaedt, specialist in American politics at the University of Birmingham. For Donald Trump, the opportunity was too good. The president wanted to be able to show off perfect water in this basin on the occasion of his big celebration organized for the 250th anniversary of the United States, scheduled for July 4, the national holiday. Less famous than the Lincoln Memorial itself, this pool in which the statue of the famous 16th President of the United States is reflected “remains a tourist site in its own right”, assures Rene Lindstaedt. Accusations of nepotism This project is all the more important in the eyes of Donald Trump because another president had ordered work there: Barack Obama. The current president and former real estate mogul, who has repeatedly said he oversaw the construction of “multiple swimming pools” in his hotel complexes, had the opportunity to “do better” than his sworn political enemy. Except that from the start, this “cleaning” accumulated controversies. “This is a textbook case of a project to satisfy Donald Trump’s ego gone wrong,” says Scott Lucas, specialist in American politics at the University of Dublin. Donald Trump began by “overriding government procedures to choose the company he wanted to do the work”, underlines Dafydd Townley, political scientist and specialist in the United States at the University of Portsmouth. Read alsoMMA fights, absent stars and controversies: Donald Trump’s strange birthday He opted for a generous donor to his campaign, the Florida entrepreneur JJ Cafaro whose company is called – ironically – Greenwater Services. Accusations of nepotism and corruption were soon made. Donald Trump did not want to turn this water green. His goal was to give it a “patriotic blue” shade, identical to the color used for the American flag. This was already a problem in itself, because “this nuance prevented the reflecting pool from fulfilling its mission of mirroring the statue of Lincoln,” emphasizes Scott Lucas. The bill for the work then exploded, going from a little over a million dollars to nearly 15 million. All this for what? In the end, once the cleaning was completed and the water changed, algae settled in the pool and the whole thing became swampy green. A challenge to the contractor Trump The contractor tried to get rid of the algae by using a product…which mainly stripped the layer of “patriotic blue” paint covering the bottom of the pool. It was then that the Maga camp’s conspiracy theory machine was set in motion. Grant Stinchfield, a far-right podcaster, first accused “unpatriotic leftists” of damaging the cleanup work done by the Trump administration. A story echoed by the president himself and which helped justify the arrests of recent days. Impossible for Donald Trump not to look for a scapegoat. “It is indeed a scandal which affects his fundamental competence, the one on which he built his career: his know-how in real estate work”, assures Dafydd Townley. “If he is unable to prove his ability to succeed in his ‘historic’ profession, everything can be called into question,” adds Rene Lindstaedt. But the president finds himself in “an almost unprecedented situation, where he cannot blame his subordinates because he is too personally invested in this story”, underlines Dafydd Townley. He must therefore take up the refrain of the conspiracy theorists. And it’s “not just a question of ego. This scandal can have a political impact”, believes Scott Lucas. Indeed, setbacks are piling up in Washington before the 250th anniversary celebrations. The new White House ballroom is facing legal and financial problems, the courts have ordered that Donald Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center in Washington, and the big concert that the president had planned risks turning into a political rally, due to a lack of artists wishing to participate. “No one likes losers in politics. And for the moment, Donald Trump appears to have failed to win the war in Iran and is in difficulty on economic issues. If, in addition, he fails to clean up a basin, his image will seriously be damaged even more,” explains Scott Lucas. For Rene Lindstaedt, “there is no doubt that the Democrats will use the images of the green reflecting pool and the construction in progress at the White House to attack the Republicans during the mid-term elections in November.” One thing is certain, the questionable management of this project hampered by stubborn algae is enough to make Donald Trump… green with rage.
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Source: This article was originally published by France 24 – Infos, news & actualités – L'information internationale en direct and adapted for our international English-speaking audience.
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