Trump’s Reflecting Pool Renovation Actually Makes Everything Worse

The Trump administration spent nearly $15 million to rid the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool of algae. They were not successful.

Within days of the pool’s refilling, the green algae hasn’t just returned but is having a “field day” thanks to high phosphate levels in the water, according to an algae researcher at the Smithsonian who spoke with CNN Tuesday.

CNN sampled and tested some of the pool’s water with the help of a swimming pool store. They found that the water contained phosphate levels “far higher than what is recommended to keep algae at bay,” based on estimates for a pool that holds 6.5 million gallons of water.

The Department of the Interior has so far blamed the algae’s resurgence, in part, on residual algae that had accumulated in the pool’s pipes—which it apparently neglected to clean as part of the multimillion-dollar restoration.

Washington’s hot and humid weather has also contributed to the bloom, as the Trump administration filled the Reflecting Pool with fresh water and, consequently, more oxygen. By the weekend, the green, plantlike form had coated the bottom of the pool in several areas and floated to the surface.

Now park workers are throwing darts at the wall trying to clean up the monument in time for America’s semiquincentennial. On Tuesday, hi-vis park workers were spotted dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the Reflecting Pool. A close-up of their equipment revealed that they were using a 12 percent concentrate, a level that can cause problems if inhaled and burns if the chemical touches the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hydrogen peroxide is generally considered less environmentally destructive as its compounds readily break down in water, but the high concentration could nonetheless pose a risk to some of the pool’s frequent visitors, such as ducks or other birds.

Photojournalists also snapped shots of buckets of Induclor around the memorial, a chlorine compound used to control bacteria, algae, slime, and fungi in water, reported The Washington Post.

Fixing the Reflecting Pool is a headache that’s plagued pretty much every administration since its construction in 1923, because what makes the Reflecting Pool beautiful is exactly what makes it so difficult to maintain.

The pool’s expansive length is possible due to the use of multiple large concrete slabs at its bottom. But those slabs are also prone to serious, structural leaks, which requires the White House to replace roughly 16 million gallons of water each year. And the pool’s shallow depth—which creates its mirror-like appearance—also detracts from the pool’s health by creating a breeding ground for algal blooms that turn the water green.

President Trump appears to be completely smitten with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, professing his love for the authoritarian leader at the G7 summit in France on Wednesday.

“I met him early in the campaign when Crooked Hillary and I were running against each other, right, and I was told that the president of Egypt is here. That was a big deal. It’s still a big deal for me to be with the great president of Egypt, but not as big as it used to be before I ran. So he was in a hotel and I met him, and we fell in love. Deeply in love,” Trump said, while seated next to the Egyptian leader. “And he didn’t even want to see Hillary. He said, ‘You’re going to win, I don’t want to meet her. You’re going to win.’ He didn’t want to see her, remember that? So we had a good relationship right from there.… We had great chemistry, and I stayed twice as long as I was supposed.”

Sisi has long supported Trump, from the infamous picture of him, the president, Melania Trump, and King Salman of Saudi Arabia touching a glowing orb in 2017 to his current role promoting the Trump administration’s plans in the Middle East. He has been accused of employing torture and forced disappearances, as well as discrimination against the LGBTQ community, by multiple human rights groups.

Donald Trump lashed out at former President Barack Obama as everyone turned on Trump’s peace deal with Iran.

Speaking at the G7 summit Wednesday, Trump desperately tried to make his peace deal seem better than Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

“He tried to bribe his way out, I didn’t do that,” the president said. “Nobody mentions that. $1.7 billion and hundreds of millions of dollars, they tried to bribe their way out of it. And you know what the Iranians did? They laughed at Obama, and said he’s a stupid son of a bitch.”

Projecting much? Obama’s previous nuclear deal with Iran unfroze a now meager-looking $1.7 billion. Now Trump wants to write Tehran a bigger check.

A leaked draft of the 14-point memorandum of understanding detailed the billions the U.S. would provide in financial relief for Iran—including a $300 billion investment fund for reconstruction in Tehran. Vice President JD Vance confirmed Monday that a $300 billion investment fund was included in the deal, but he walked back the claim just hours later, while Trump and the White House outright denied it.

Here’s why the investment fund matters: If such a fund does exist, that means that Trump will have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and killed thousands of civilians (including children) to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon that it wasn’t even building in the first place.

All of this would be cleared up if the White House would just release the text of the MOU. It’s hard not to imagine that if the deal was any good for the U.S., it would’ve released it right away.

The president just scrambled the last week of negotiations in Congress to abet his dead voter ID bill.

Donald Trump cancelled the Senate confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton via a Truth Social post Wednesday, just hours before it was set to take place. Trump had tapped Clayton earlier this month to run the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in place of acting Director Bill Pulte. Democrats had argued that even temporarily appointing Pulte, a housing regulator, was illegal, since he had no national security experience to bring to the job. (For the record, neither does Clayton.)

As a result, Democrats completely stalled negotiations over FISA Section 702, a statute that allows federal agencies such as the NSA and the CIA to surveil foreigners on U.S. soil without warrants. But even without Pulte’s name in the mix, negotiations had stalled over the FISA section as both chambers failed to pass an extension.

And Trump has undoubtedly only made matters worse by involving himself in the process. In a lengthy rant Wednesday, Trump baselessly lamented that Republicans had advanced Clayton’s nomination without any concrete assurances from Democrats. He then hitched the FISA section’s renewal onto his Save America Act, which Republicans have warned him dozens of times has no chance of passing the Senate. That legislation hinges on Trump’s conspiracy theory that noncitizens are voting (against him) in U.S. elections.

“Now, the Dumocrats are saying they will vote against FISA—So, the Republicans wound up having fulfilled their commitment, but Dumocrats broke the Deal,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, to add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country, I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it. Not complicated, actually, the Republicans fell into a trap.”

The Save America Act sparked nationwide controversy earlier this year, particularly over a detail in the bill that would have made it more difficult for married women to vote. The backlash on Capitol Hill was grave, so much so that it gummed up efforts to fund Homeland Security for several months. Republicans eventually had to bail on the package to end the congressional gridlock.

The Save America Act suggests numerous amendments to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, including line items that would abolish mail-in voting, require voters to bring proof of citizenship and proof of residency to register to vote, require voter ID, and mandate voter roll purges every 30 days, an enormous bureaucratic task that would place undue burdens on local election officials. The measure would also add a federal law to prevent men from competing in women’s sports, and a ban on “transgender mutilation surgery.”

Trump noted that the pause on Clayton’s Senate confirmation would also interrupt the rest of the pipeline: in the meantime, Pulte would remain as the acting DNI, while Jamie McDonald—a litigation partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell—would wait to replace Clayton as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the chamber’s intelligence committee, ignored the president’s bluster. He noted on his X account that the president’s influence did not extend to the Senate confirmation hearing process.

“Jay Clayton is a pending nominee before the Intelligence Committee,” Cotton wrote. “We will proceed with his hearing as scheduled unless the president directs him not to appear or withdraws his nomination.”

This story has been updated.

White House officials are trying to claim that a leaked draft of the peace agreement between Iran and the U.S. isn’t real.

CNN reported Wednesday that the deal consists of a 14-point memorandum of understanding, which it obtained from a U.S. official. The points include the terms of the ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and details about billions in financial relief for Iran.

However, White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung denied the CNN report’s accuracy, posting on X that “The supposed text of the MOU that was obtained by CNN does not reflect the language of the actual MOU.” President Trump also issued his own denial Wednesday when reporters asked about the inclusion of a plan for the U.S. and Gulf allies to “ensure financing of at least $300 billion” in reconstruction funds.

“It’s false. People, you can invest if you want. What am I gonna do, say nobody’s ever allowed to invest? We’re not invest[ing]—we’re not putting up 10 cents. People can decide to do that, but that’s up to them,” Trump said at the G7 summit in France, seated alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. “We are not investing in it, and we do not have a fund.”

Trump also denied that Gulf countries were investing in the fund, and added that the CNN report was a “false story that got picked up incorrectly from a statement that was pretty well made, I think.”

Bloomberg also obtained a copy of the draft memorandum, which U.S. officials are not attacking, although an unnamed Iranian official told the country’s Tasnim news agency that parts of it were inaccurate. It contains similar language regarding $300 billion in reconstruction funds for Iran. Both versions also promise that the U.S. will release additional billions in frozen Iranian assets.

Until the official terms are released to the public, we won’t know for sure if any funds will be transferred, or what assurances are being made to ensure that the war doesn’t resume. Trump could easily clear this all up by releasing the signed agreement in full, but for now, he’s content to attack the media and leave everyone guessing.