Trump to use same company to repair Reflecting Pool after 'vandals' damaged it
The Trump administration will not seek new bids to repair the botched renovations at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum revealed on Sunday. 17:50 ET, 05 Jul 2026Updated 17:51. . .
The Trump administration will not seek new bids to repair the botched renovations at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum revealed on Sunday. 17:50 ET, 05 Jul 2026Updated 17:51 ET, 05 Jul 2026The Trump administration will not seek new bids to repair the botched renovations at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum revealed on Sunday. Burgum said on Sunday that he agrees withPresident Donald Trump'sunfounded claim that the algae that appeared just days after the multi-million-dollar renovations to the Reflecting Pool were unveiled was a product of vandalism. Trump has previously argued that a 350-foot gash was cut into the pool’s liner in the midst of recent renovations. Because of the suspectedvandalism, the expected repairments will not be opened up to new contractors. “We’ll use the same company, because they did a fantastic job,”Burgumtold CNN’s “State of the Union. ” ”Thankfully, the vandalism was small. It was bad. I mean, it could cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair, so then it could fall into a felony. . . just like damaging any other government property could. But the job that was done to fix the Reflecting Pool was done extremely well. ”Article continues belowIn a separate interview with ABC, Burgum continued his arguments that the emerging algae and the blue paint’s chipping came from acts of vandalism. “So the reflecting pool has been a big success, and we've got 340 million people in this country that are celebrating 250. We did have a few vandals, but all that's going to be repairable, and that will all be fixed in the coming weeks as we go forward,” Burgum said. When asked why the pool’s renovations are considered a “success” despite requiring further work, Burgum argued that it remains unclear whether the pool will be fully or partially drained. “We don't know if we need to drain the whole thing or not because the cutting happened on the edge and of course it slopes from the edge. It's not a flat bottom pool, it slopes from the edge to the middle. And so we may be able to partially drain it and do the repair to be able to fix it. We may not have to drain the whole thing, but it could go very quickly. And of course, again, when you're talking about 340,000 square feet of surface, even though there was damage done by vandals that was there,” Burgum said. Trump this spring pledged to beautify the Reflecting Pool before the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations on July Fourth. Water was drained and the Republican president directed that the bottom be painted a color he called “American flag blue. ” But after the site was restored, the water was plagued by an algae bloom for more than a week, and pieces of the new coating have appeared to be peeling off the bottom. The pool was closed for the Independence Day celebration, but Burgum said that was due to a safety issue related to the fireworks. The evolving debate over the Reflecting Pool has inflamed the broader fight over Trump’s aggressive push to overhaul Washington landmarks, including the White House, nearly two years into his final term in office. Authorities have arrested more than a half dozen people related in relation to Reflecting Pool damage, including former Olympian David Hearn, who was indicted last week on a felony of property destruction. The top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia, U. S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, said Hearn ripped up recently installed sealant on the pool in “a deliberate act” that caused more than $1,000 in damage. She accused him of “forcefully and violently” pulling up the bottom liner “with both hands” and acting belligerently toward an employee who told him to stop. Hearn’s lawyers, Democracy Defenders Fund co-founder Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, said the charges were “outrageous and should be alarming to every American. ” Eisen and Dohrmann construed the case as representative of “the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative. ”Burgum was asked and did not answer directly whether there was photographic evidence of vandals cutting the pool’s liner. He was also asked whether Hearn should face a 10-year prison sentence, which is the maximum legal penalty for his charge. “Just because you were a former something doesn’t exclude you from the law today,” Burgum told CNN. “The courts will decide. ”Meanwhile, questions loom over the no-bid contracts for the project that were awarded to vendors with prior ties to Trump. Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, also known as Greenwater Services, was given a $1. 7 million contract to install a water-purification system in the Reflecting Pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14. 7 million to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor. About 10 Democratic senators and House members are investigating the pool project. Article continues below“Taxpayers deserve a full explanation of how these failures occurred and who will be held accountable for correcting them,″ said a letter signed last month by six senators.