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President Trump Describes Reflecting Pool Restoration at a Fraction of Bid Cost

April 23, 2026 · The White House · 0:03:13

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Trump said he took up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as a cost-saving project, describing the pool — built in 1922, more than 2,000 feet long and 167 feet wide, as he stated the dimensions — as filthy and leaking for many years when he inspected it with the Secret Service and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whom he named as the official responsible for it, according to his account in the White House video. He said officials’ plan was to remove the granite and replace it with stone at a cost of $300 million over perhaps more than three years, as he stated the bid figures.

The President said he instead called pool builders who had worked for him before and set a price he put at maybe a million and a half to $2 million: the existing granite was scrubbed, grouted and repaired in about two weeks, and an industrial-grade swimming-pool topping in a color he said he chose — American flag blue, as he named it — was applied, which he said will last 40 or 50 years with no leaks, according to his description. He presented the project as a business story: a better job, in his characterization, for much less money and in much less time.

Why it matters

The Reflecting Pool is the President’s chosen Exhibit A for his cost-cutting approach to federal projects — a famous landmark, a stated bid price and a stated actual approach, all in his own words — and it belongs in the efficiency record this site keeps.

Scoreboard watch

Flagged for the scoreboard editor: President Trump’s stated figures in this April 23, 2026 video — $300 million and three-plus years for the conventional restoration bids versus roughly $1.5-2 million and about two weeks for the scrub, grout and topping method he described — as stated by him, for checking against Interior Department project records. No verdict is given here.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump is Making the Reflecting Pool Beautiful Again”, 2026-04-23 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-04-23). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.