President Donald Trump said on June 20 that the U.S. Park Police have arrested multiple people for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which he recently ordered renovated.
“Who would do such a thing?” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on the evening of June 20. “These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments. Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair.”
Earlier this year, Trump began an effort to renovate numerous monuments on the National Mall in Washington ahead of the Independence Day celebrations on the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding. Among the renovation projects was to clean the reflecting pool and apply new blue lining. The renovations were recently completed, but algae has since begun to bloom in the pool.
In a Truth Social post on June 19, Trump wrote that renovation efforts across the national capital were progressing well.
Trump said acts of vandalism against the reflecting pool included efforts to destroy the grass around the pool and to damage the new lining. He alleged that some people had also used chemicals to damage the monument.
Trump accused ABC reporter Jonathan Karl of “trying to rip the rubber off of the surface” of the pool on June 19.
Hours before the president’s June 19 social media post, Karl filmed a segment for ABC’s Good Morning America in which he reported that the freshly installed blue lining on the reflecting pool was beginning to peel. In the segment, Karl could be seen sticking his hand into the pool and touching the peeling pool lining, although it was unclear from the segment whether he caused the lining to detach.
On June 19, reporter Emily Miller also posted a video appearing to show U.S. Park Police handcuffing a cyclist who had stopped near the reflecting pool. Miller said the cyclist was arrested for vandalism and said he had grabbed a hose National Park Service workers were using to clear algae from the pool, although the exact reason for his detention isn’t clear from the video Miller posted.
The U.S. Park Police did not respond to a request for details about the recent arrests for acts of vandalism of the reflecting pool.
Trump said on June 19 that the algae in the reflecting pool is 75 percent gone and that “the area that was vandalized, fortunately, is just a small area of damage, and will be fixed early next week.”
