Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis took an opportunity to shred left-leaning news publication The Washington Post after they wrote an article and shared it on social media platform X, slamming President Donald Trump’s renovation of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, saying that it cost way more than the initially projected $10 million and looked the same as it did before.
If you look at a side-by-side comparison of before-and-after the renovation, the water looks significantly clearer and less dingy than it did several years ago. DeSantis wrote a response to the article on X, saying, “Why put this spin on it when it’s obvious that it looks much better? Not exactly helping in the media credibility department.”
During a recent unrelated event, President Trump showed a video of water filling the freshly painted basin located at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. “That’s clean, beautiful water,” Trump said. And it seems the president’s renovations extend far beyond the Reflecting Pool. He also announced a plan to build a “promenade” that would provide pedestrians space to walk from the back of the Lincoln Memorial to the Potomac River.
“They want to call it the ‘Trump Promenade’ but I don’t know if I want to do that, but it’s going to be beautiful,” the president said during the event. The reflecting pool, which is over 2,000 feet long, was first built in the 1920s. It’s located between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument and is considered to be one of the most iconic sites in our nation’s capital, according to The Washington Post.
“The basin held about 6.5 million gallons of water — roughly as much as 10 Olympic-size swimming pools — before a 2012 renovation, according to the National Park Service. Under that earlier renovation, the pool was reengineered with a circulation and filtration system so that instead of using the city’s drinking water, it draws river water from the nearby Tidal Basin,” the report continued.
Critics have ripped President Trump for dedicating so much of his time to these projects, claiming he’s not prioritizing issues voters care about, such as the cost of living, especially with the November midterms rapidly approaching. Others say he wants to transform the Reflecting Pool to make it look more like a traditional swimming pool.
On DeSantis’ post, users commented on the fact that there’s clearly a difference between how the pool looked in 2022 compared to after Trump’s renovations. “And the pictures show that it does NOT look the same! Much cleaner. AND, the non-visible changes should keep the pool from wasting water via leakage. I can only hope they can keep out algae,” one user said.
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User Lord Stevie wisecracked that it “only looks the same if your vision is impaired by TDS,” making a reference to Trump Derangement Syndrome, which is a phrase conservatives use to mock the high level of hatred and obsession the left has for the president. “Nice try Washington Rag Post. We’ve all seen what it looked like before and it’s not the pic you posted. What the hell is wrong with you? This is so pathetic,” user Melissa Powell posted on X.