President Trump on Monday will make his closing argument before the midterm elections at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a landmark whose failed repair job became a high-profile symbol of his second administration’s struggles with governing. The Reflecting Pool has been closed and fenced off since July, after earlier repairs ended in a debacle: The pool’s new blue waterproof coating peeled up, and algae blooms turned the water bright green. Since then, contractors have applied a new layer of waterproofing and flushed out the pool’s filtration system.
Photos of the pool in recent days have shown it gradually refilling. Trump is scheduled to speak at the pool at 2 p.m. On Sunday, while campaigning for Republican candidates in Iowa, the president told reporters that he wanted to return to the pool to show “how beautiful it is.” Then he again blamed vandals for the pool’s problems, even though federal prosecutors and the contractors who repaired the pool said the biggest problem was flaws in the repair work.
That entire section of the National Mall was surrounded by a much larger perimeter of fencing set up for Mr. The Interior Department, which oversees the pool, did not respond to questions about the repair work on Monday. The Reflecting Pool, which is more than 100 years old, is a vast shallow concrete pond that reflects the Lincoln Memorial at one end and the Washington Monument at the other.
For years, it has been plagued by leaks and algae. Trump has spent millions of dollars seeking to repair and remake Washington landmarks, as well as to build new projects including a White House ballroom and a 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery. Those repairs have often come at the expense of other parks around the country; the administration used at least $67 million in revenue from park entrance fees to help fund projects in Washington.
The Reflecting Pool was one of the icons he sought to fix. Trump’s administration tried to perform a rush repair job this spring, to fix the pool’s problems in time for the country’s 250th birthday celebrations. But the repairs quickly veered off course.
Instead of a shining symbol of the president’s efforts to beautify the capital, the pool became a stark reflection of dysfunction, dishonesty and the administration’s willingness to use the justice system against its perceived enemies. The repair project began in April, when the Interior Department awarded a no-bid contract for the pool to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a small firm in Virginia that had never won a federal contract before. The company was assigned to carry out a plan — designed in part by the general manager of Mr.
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