Video: watson/Emanuella Kälin
June 4, 2026, 10:59June 4, 2026, 10:59
US President Donald Trump is making progress with his plan to change the appearance of the capital Washington in more and more places according to his ideas. The renovation work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a well-known water basin not far from the White House, has now been effectively completed, as Trump announced in the Oval Office. Now all that’s missing is cleaning the adjacent sidewalks – and the water in the pool.
The cleaning of the huge pool also attracted attention because the president had the floor painted blue – namely blue “like the US flag,” as Trump explained to journalists in his office.
Built in the 1920s, the water basin in the heart of the US capital attracts tons of tourists. It lies between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
Video: watson/Emanuella Kälin
Trump: A dozen trucks full of trash
The president emphasized how necessary the renovation was. “Eleven or twelve truckloads of garbage” were removed from the water basin. According to Trump, further renovation will no longer be necessary for “50 to 100 years” after the work is completed.
At the press briefing in the Oval Office, he avoided specifying the cost of the project. Trump spoke of only a “small fraction of the costs” that previous governments had spent on their attempts to clean up the water basin. Shortly before completion, US media such as the New York Times reported that the costs had increased sevenfold. According to Trump, the cost of the repairs was originally supposed to be 1.8 million US dollars (around 1.5 million euros); Now, according to the media, there is talk of more than 13.1 million dollars.
A lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior filed by a nonprofit organization failed to stop the project. The plaintiffs accuse Trump of not subjecting the project to federal review and of bypassing the relevant authorities. (sda/dpa)