National Park Service employees use vacuum cleaners to clean the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.Image: keystone
Donald Trump’s renovation of the reflecting pool is turning into a flop. Now alleged vandals have been arrested, including an athlete.
June 21, 2026, 3:04 p.mJune 21, 2026, 4:35 p.m
After several people were arrested for alleged vandalism at the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC, one of those affected has now commented on it. This is three-time Olympian and two-time canoe slalom world champion David Hearn. He told the Washington Post that he had not caused any damage to the pool.
Hearn said he stopped at the pool while on a bike ride to see the renovations for himself. After bending down to touch a piece of the peeling blue paint, the 67-year-old was surrounded by two National Guard members and arrested by US Park Police officers on a misdemeanor charge of destroying government property. “I didn’t destroy, break or peel anything,” Hearn told the newspaper. “When I realized what was going on, I was already handcuffed.”
David Hearn at one of his past competitions.Image: imago
He described his action specifically: “I reached in and was able to grab the end of this protruding, already detaching piece. It was still attached at the bottom. I didn’t remove anything.”
US President Trump had previously had the pool in the Lincoln Monument renovated for $14 million, including painting the base in the color “American flag blue”. As a result, however, the water took on a swampy green color. In addition, the blue paint came off again, so that blue pieces were floating everywhere in the pool.
The blue layer is peeling off in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington. Image: keystone
Trump now claims that the renovations “worked perfectly” before “disgraceful vandalism” occurred. Unknown people made a 75-meter-long cut in the pool with “some kind of knife or blade” and poured “corrosive and destructive chemicals into the pool,” the US president added. Given Washington’s often humid temperatures, algae blooms have been a problem since the pool opened in 1922.
Trump posted on Saturday evening that the Park Police had arrested “several individuals for damaging our nation’s magnificent Reflecting Pool.”
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