Trump Focuses on Plumbing and Renaming Pool at Lincoln Memorial Before Critical Congressional Election
President Donald Trump spent 50 minutes at the Lincoln Memorial discussing pipe repairs and renaming the reflecting pool ahead of Americans vote for control ...
POLICY WIRE — Washington, D.C. — On the final afternoon before voters head to the polls to determine control of Congress, President Donald Trump spent nearly an hour at the Lincoln Memorial providing a detailed narration of old plumbing infrastructure.
The 80-year-old president, expected to deliver a high-stakes closing argument to mobilize voters for Republican candidates on Tuesday, instead engaged in a meandering 50-minute speech. His remarks shifted abruptly from the technical quality of the pool’s new coating to proposals for renaming bodies of water, the conquest of Venezuela, and warnings regarding Democratic candidates he labeled as “communist jihadists.”
After opening his remarks with a playful suggestion to rename the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in his honor, the president summoned a seemingly confused aide to display various photographs. The images showed corroded pipework and aging joints, which Trump blamed on the mismanagement of the century-old water feature by the previous administration.
This was the joints that were here that we took out, the president remarked while lingering on specific details. He spent a significant amount of time discussing the presence of algae, the American flag blue hue of the newly resurfaced basin, the granite—which he described as having a million-year life”—and the 330,000 square feet of protective coating recently installed.
As an audience of journalists and invited guests looked on, the president spoke in a hoarse monotone, repeating fabricated claims regarding non-existent vandalism that he had introduced months prior following an earlier attempt to renovate the site.
em>Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)
