The lining of the Reflecting Pool at Washington D.C.'s Lincoln Memorial was painted blue to please Trump: a no-bid $14.7m contract that went to a company that had worked on one of his swimming pools. Within days of the pool being refilled, it was full of algae. And two weeks on, the blue paint is peeling.
Reuters reports that neither the National Park Service, responsible for the pool, nor Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the Virginia-based company that painted it, responded to inquiries.
"I want my money back after seeing this. I think our resources could be used a lot better elsewhere," Robert Dale of Edwards, Colorado, told Reuters as he looked on. "I think this reflecting pool was beautiful before, before all this attention."
The pool project was typical of Trump's various impulsive renovations to the Capitol, which range from cheap Home Depot gold trim in the Oval Office to suddenly demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for a $400m ballroom. Quick and shoddy work is a characteristic of corruption: Trump was often mocked for not really being the billionaire he claimed to be, but he has become extraordinarily wealthy in his second term as the fruits of his work bloom.
