By now we’ve seen the photos of the peeling, algae-filled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. after convicted felon/adjudicated sexual abuser/President Trump tried to put his stamp on it by rushing the project to restore the pool and changing its color. Trump is working hard to blame purported “vandals” for the degradation of the pool, but there are several stories about the situation that may have flown under the radar, that can help explain the debacle and that point to Trump’s own choices as possibly being the culprit in this mess.
Last March, the Sika Corporation in Lyndenhurst, New Jersey — a company that had already provided concrete construction and sealing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. before, in 2012 — was offered the opportunity to perform Trump’s chosen renovations to the pool, but after seeing the terms of the project and doing a routine feasibility and risk evaluation of it, the company dubbed the project “unfeasible,” saying Trump’s July 4 deadline for completion was impossible and warning that painting the pool’s bottom a different color would create more problems, which it has.
After the Sika Corporation turned down the project, Trump then bypassed the federal government’s normal procurement procedures, which are aimed at finding the best expertise at the best price for a given job, and awarded a $14.7 million, no-bid contract for the job to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a company that had previously worked on a swimming pool at one of his resorts and that has never previously had a federal contract. To award the project as a no-bid contract, Trump invoked an exemption meant only for urgent situations — a type of exemption that is supposed to be used only to prevent “serious injury, financial or other, to the government,” but Trump used the exemption to meet his already-declared-unrealistic July 4 deadline for completion. In a May 8, 2026 exclusive article, The New York Times wrote,
“The pool is the latest in a string of cases where Mr. Trump’s government invoked special powers to shut down required competition, and then handed contracts directly to the president’s preferred vendors.
The renovation plans exemplify how Mr. Trump views much of the nation’s capital as his imperial realm — to decorate, or even destroy, as he sees fit. In doing so, he and his administration have run roughshod over a decades-old review process for changes in Washington’s core, as well as rules intended to ensure government money is spent wisely and without favoritism.”
Trump’s chosen company rushed the job to meet Trump’s arbitrary deadline, apparently sacrificing quality to do so. The type of coating used to line the pool was made by Rhino Linings, better known for making coatings for truck bed liners. One product that was applied, called Pipeliner 5000, is normally used for water storage and wastewater facilities, situations in which water is not exposed to direct sunlight like it is in the Reflecting Pool. Another product used on the pool, Rhino 406 Primer, is typically used on garage floors and is not well suited to flexible expansion joints like those in the Reflecting Pool, according to a Sika employee.
Moreover, if you Google the address of Atlantic Industrial Coatings as it appears on the contract summary at USASpending.gov, you get the following photo:
The location of the headquarter of Atlantic Industrial Coatings is so remote that Google Street view doesn’t even have a photo of it. It is listed by real estate companies as a small residence built in 1970 on a 2.63 acre lot.
What’s more, soon after the coatings were applied to the Reflecting Pool and before the pool was refilled with water, Trump took his entire motorcade for a joyride across the empty pool. The vehicle Trump rode in for the occasion has 8-inch thick, military-grade armor in its doors and 5 inch thick, bulletproof windows, and weighs about 20,000 pounds. The motorcade included numerous other heavy vehicles, which could easily have damaged the pool’s new liner. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted a video of Trump’s joyride, which took place on May 7:
🚨 INCREDIBLE SCENE: President Trump just directed his motorcade straight into the drained Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool for an up-close look at the ongoing renovation progress!
Trump wanted to personally inspect the major “American flag blue” resurfacing project — and the… pic.twitter.com/baHZItEEmu
— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) May 8, 2026
Claims of vandalism at the pool have also been tenuous. The National Park Service posted a video of a person said to be in the act of “vandalizing” the pool, but it only shows a woman kneeling by the side of the pool trying to touch something in the water. Law enforcement authorities also arrested and charged David Hearn, a 67-year-old former U.S. Olympic canoeist who has a background in materials science, with a misdemeanor of destruction of government property after he reached into the Reflecting Pool out of curiosity to touch a piece of the blue lining that had already peeled off.
We’ll have to wait to see if any of the “vandalism” charges stick for the six or so people that Trump has so far had arrested for the “crime” they supposedly committed of trying to touch the reflecting pool.