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Trump's $14M Reflecting Pool Paint Job Is Now Peeling Off And Floating To The Surface
(www.huffpost.com)
At least it will be easy to remove after he's gone
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
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politics
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100% they will blame liberals for this. Even if they have to invent new idiotic conspiracy theories
They're blaming Obama for the algae already
Yeah, and now they'll come up with some conspiracy about them sabotaging the new lining
Joe Biden caused the contractors to paint untreated wet concrete?
Everything this cunt touches dies. If you want to destroy something, just convince donald the rapist trump to get involved.
Corruption in play sight, terrifying symbolism for all to see. Washington is more transparent that people think.
Background: Firm Tied to Trump Donor Got No-Bid Contract to Clean Reflecting Pool and Reflecting Pool Contract Has ‘Inflated’ Profit Margin, Government Analysis Finds
So if you think $14 million is too much money for what is basically a paint job, you would be correct. Trump gave his buddy a no-bid contract at way too high a price. And it turns out they were incompetent too. Additionally, I would be surprised if Trump did not get a personal kickback from they $14 million in taxpayer dollars paid to the incompetent firm.
I think the original contract was for under $2 million. But (at least partially) because there was no bidding process, we ended up with Trump's pool guy who then went on to increase that contract amount by 700% to $14 million.
Presumably, change orders needed to be issued to increase the contact amount. Meaning multiple people, including engineers presumably, reviewed and approved these changes. Most places would also have an environmental review, but somehow I sincerely doubt that happened.
Every single person involved in this process needs to be, at the very least, suspended pending an investigation.
For any real contract for capital projects, a 700% increase in contract amount through change orders would never be approved, and the entity paying the contractor for the work would do everything they could to kill the contract and ensure that they don't need to spend 700x the amount they agreed to. Because it would fuck their budget completely, among other things.
As I understand it, the paint caused the pool to heat up causing the algae to bloom causing the pH to go up causing the paint to peel. So hypothetically not the painters job if he expected the counter measures that should have been in place to work, but realistically that should have been addressed and confirmed well before the pool was even emptied.
We don't know the specifics here, but yes, engineers should have designed and approved the plans and specifications. Those engineers should have been available throughout construction to address possible issues. But given how fast they started doing this, and now seeing the results, I don't think that happened.
That said, for the amount of money they received, they should have had sub contractors who aren't painters, but are maybe more experts on plumbing, or algae reduction, etc.
In a real capital project, where everyone involved actually gives a fuck about the outcome and the quality of work, there would have been ongoing discussions between the contractor and the design engineers to make sure that the final product isn't riddled with these stupid, foreseeable, problems.
But yeah, don't think that happened. And it's not because they didn't have the budget.
If I worked for the federal government, and was tasked with rubber stamping this bullshit, I would have said "go fuck yourself, fire me."
Everyone involved in letting this happen should be ashamed of themselves.
The fact that this is essentially a swamp has to be one of the craziest things yet. in terms of life imitating art. I mean, it's exactly what you'd expect out of a book. Absolutely beautiful IRL symbolism and irony
Well, where else would he drain it to?
Probably used some crappy house paint instead of properly prepping and sealing cement and then applying a 2-part epoxy meant for continuous contact with water.
The contractor pocketed the difference.
Now we have more plastic type waste, wasted money, wasted news cycle about the dumb job. Have no fear, though, they’ll waste no time at all auditing the job.
Everything trump touches dies.
I think they've also been dumping loads of bleach in it to kill the algae.
I imagine most paints won't appreciate being soaked in hot bleach for a few days.
Let alone whatever crap they used here.
(edit because clarity is important, this is only what I have heard, I don't have a source other than some short form content I watched about it that claimed it.)
It was hydrogen peroxide, and from what I remember it was 13% (most of the stuff you use at home is 2%, 13% will burn your skin) so the theory I heard is that it might have been eating away at the paint, or getting between the paint and the actual structural layer and causing it to peel off
It was peroxide. You can see the boxes in the video, they’re labeled and say 12%. Apparently bleach was used too, but I haven’t seen the videos of that.
Probably used some crappy house paint
This was comedy yesterday: https://youtu.be/Wz_JVFW83iY?t=554
It's not nearly the first time an absurb, stupid take on something gets played to extremes for laughs only for that the be the actual path taken despite all the warnings/math/science/reality that have to be ignored. It won't be the last, either.
To be clear, that's more my reflecting pool than it is Trump's. I pay more taxes than he does and that's 14mil taxpayer money.
A great success: the dirty, smelly, green pond with chunks floating on the surface from some cowboy MAGA contractor whose work lasted one week will be a perfect symbol of the USA on its 250th birthday.
No complaints have been reported, however, from the local ducks, who have been conducting business as usual.
Truly, we are a decadent empire.
Murica is now a soap series, great success in the rest of the planet
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(4 replies)
Wait… they’ve been dumping bleach and hydrogen peroxide and who knows what in the pool, did they actually fuck it up from sheer incompetence?
No they paid $17 million to a contractor to do a $500 job. It's not incompetence, it's corruption.
Yes, permanently.
Just drain it and then clean the paint off and sand it down to smooth out the stone again.
Then you can fill the pool with water that has been treated properly.
It's not hard, it just takes competent people being in charge of it. Not someone's "pool guy"
It’s not that simple. They’ve already sand blasted and pebble blasted a couple of times, and this is even after the whole granite reflecting pool was torn out and replaced by concrete several years ago.
The truth is, and this is in no way to defend Trump, fixing the problems with the reflecting pool have been an ongoing issue for more than 25 years now. To those knowledgeable on the issue, what makes Trump‘s failure particularly spectacular is that he was so public about it, spent so much money on it, and clearly had such an incredibly ignorant understanding of the problems at it faced, and what is really required to fix the problems, that it only magnified his already Trumpian buffoonery. Although, I am kind of enjoying this ridiculous failure.
The problems with the Reflecting Pool are both numerous and old. It’s a complicated system that is fed by the nearby Potomac River, has a complicated pumping and filtering system, and just a whole bunch of other bullshit that clearly Donald Trump does not understand. A lot of very intelligent people have spent a lot of time and a lot of money trying to fix it, and have still had trouble.
It Trump - with zero knowledge at all (even of its name) thought he could fix it, and hired the most corrupt pool guy he ever met to try – and it has failed so hilariously. Ran on his birthday, too, when a whole butt load of tourists are in Washington DC to see his failure.
The joke here isn’t that Trump failed, which, of course he would, it’s that he failled so publicly and loudly after spending so much time making such a big deal about giving everyone else who did a better job than him shit for not doing what he, himself, has also failed to do.
The thing is, as far as I'm aware, he wasn't even trying to fix the problems. He was, in almost the Trumpiest way possible (the only thing more Trump would be to use fake gold), just trying to gild the lilly. It was purely about appearance, not function.
Like another poster said, it's truly a microcosm of the MAGA/Republican governing style. Pay a buddy way too much pretending that the problem is easy to solve. The buddy grifts by cheaping out on everything. They fuck up the system so badly it becomes a cesspool. And result is that it gets worse and becomes even more expensive to fix.
*And then blame democrats
Don't forget the best part... Now that it's worse than ever, the next attempt to fix it by someone else will be even more expensive and they'll loudly point that out. It will probably the opposite party because voters swing wildly with no memory.
and they’ll loudly point that out.
So document everything and have the memes ready to keep the memory alive when the next attempt is made.
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(5 replies)
I see your problem right there
You said "competent people", and this is not only the US government, this is the US Trump government.
Competency has gone long, long ago
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did they actually fuck it up from sheer incompetence?
Fucking things up with sheer incompetence has been a hallmark of this entire administration. At this point, I'd be astonished if it was just a run-of-the-mill accident.
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Ha! I fucking called this not even a week ago! And two people down voted it, btw.
People are pretty shitty with downvotes tbh. They use them as a more passive middle finger. Just a quick "feel bad, because you are bad" signal. I wish I didn't care about them but my human nature gets the best of me. If switching instances was easier I'd probably go to one that has them disabled.
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(3 replies)
Thanks Obama!
Just going to point out the obvious here and say that this is exactly the type of thing that always happens in autocratic countries.
Dear leader gives a bucket of money to a mate for "a contract". Mate spends 10% of the money on the job and pockets the rest. When the job goes wrong they just deny and blame.
It would be hilarious.
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