By
Nia Prater,
Intelligencer staff writer, who covers New York politics
A worker removes algae and debris from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after it was painted blue in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, June 15, 2026.
President Donald Trump’s ongoing quest to remake the nation’s capital as he sees fit has faced plenty of setbacks. Over the weekend, his name was chiseled off of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a months-long legal challenge. On Tuesday, new reporting suggested that costs for his heavily derided White House ballroom/bunker/droneport have ballooned to $600 million, much of which will be footed by taxpayers. And all the while, another one of the president’s pet projects has quickly become a major muck up: Trump’s personally directed no-bid renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been stymied by fuzzy green algae.
