“Just flew right by the reflecting pool on approach to DCA. Looks like this morning’s hydrogen peroxide bleaching is having an effect on the perimeter,” Atlanta News First’s Brendan Keefe wrote on X alongside a photo of the deeply discolored pool.
Trump wasted over $13 million of our tax dollars amidst soaring inflation and consumer suffering to “renovate” the Reflecting Pool. It’s part of his increasing obsession with leaving a physical legacy in lieu of a positive historic one.
But the project, like everything else that Trump does, has quickly turned into a disaster. Shortly after it reopened, algae bloomed, destroying the perfect blue aesthetic that Trump was trying so hard to cultivate. First, the administration tried sending in workers to vacuum up the algae. When that failed, they resorted earlier today to dumping hydrogen peroxide in.
Rather than clear up the water, the peroxide has made the pool even more discolored, with uneven streaks of murky green spreading across the surface. What was meant to be a polished showcase has instead become a public embarrassment playing out in real time.
It’s a fitting visual metaphor for a project defined less by planning than by optics, and less by results than by headlines.
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