Standing before the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, President Donald Trump focused his closing pitch to midterm voters on his controversial Washington, D.C., construction projects, reducing crime in the nation's capital and improvements to the White House.
A day before the Nov. 3 elections, Trump touted the construction of a helipad on the South Lawn, sprucing up Lafayette Park and Columbus Circle, re-grassing the lawn in front of the White House and his plans for a 250-foot Triumphal Arch.
And he delved at length into the Reflecting Pool project itself, which was marked by six months of false starts before finally opening last week, holding up photos for emphasis and speaking for more than 20 minutes before mentioning the midterms.
When he did,
he warned that the Democratic Party had nominated "the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history."
With polls and prognosticators showing a Democratic surge in the midterm stretch's final days and voter concern solidly focused on cost of living issues, the president's decision to close out his 28-rally campaign blitz with a speech focused on construction in Washington, D.C., was unexpected.
"And by the way, we resurfaced the granite. This granite was all resurfaced," Trump said, speaking under a cloudy sky over the occasional sound of airplanes flying overhead, with the calm water of the pool behind him, and further in the distance the Washington Monument.
"We've now fixed all the piping, it's in great shape," he later added, also displaying a photo of the "tremendous algae problem" he said plagued the pool.
A sign next to the reflecting pool announced: "Back, and more beautiful than ever!"
The message he aimed to send was clear: He is literally and metaphorically fixing Washington.
"We fought for 250 years to make it great. We're not going let it be torn down by a bunch of people that have failed everywhere they've been because of... various ideologies, they've always failed every single time," said Trump. "So we'll defend our country, our culture and our heritage for generations to come. We're going to keep it the way it."
Whether that sometimes meandering message resonates with voters during a midterm cycle focused on cost of living concerns will be determined on Nov. 3. Trump spent nearly an hour making the case, gathering media and a few guests - including uniformed National Park Service workers - for a more sedate event than the raucous rallies he has staged from Alaska to Florida in recent weeks.
The midterm map has proven difficult for Republicans. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates 222 House districts as favoring Democratic candidates, more than enough to claim the 218-seat majority. Of the 18 "toss-up" districts, 14 are currently represented by Republicans.
On the Senate side, Democrats lead their Republican rivals in six of the seven contested states that will determine control of the Senate and are tied in a seventh, according to a final set of polls before the midterm elections from The New York Times and Siena University. Six of those seven seats are currently held by Republicans.
Trump has beseeched voters to "pretend" he is on the ballot, but he is also battlinglow approval numbers. His approval rating sits at 37% according to an Emerson College poll, marking a new low ahead of the midterm elections.
The president on Nov. 2, however, sought to highlight accomplishments including bringing crime down, getting rid of homeless encampments and graffiti on the monuments in Washington, D.C.
Among construction projects he's undertaken including demolishing the East Wing to build a ballroom, a 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, repaving the Rose Garden and remaking the the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center.
The president put his D.C. renovations efforts at the center of his closing message even as polls show most Americans have concerns about them. A Washington Post-Ipsos survey from July found that 65% of Americans say they are dissatisfied or upset with three Trump priorities: The reflecting pool, ballroom and arch.
Trump also claimed during his speech that the U.S. had won the war with Iran, even as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to commercial traffic, causing fluctuating oil and gas prices and adding to voter anxiety.
"I hope people realize that when they go into the voting booth, because we had to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon," he said. "We allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon this country could never function the same way."
The reflecting pool saga began in April after the administration awarded two no-bid contracts to repair the pool in preparation for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations on July 4.
Trump first publicly announced the project to transform the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on April 23 during an event at the Oval Office, describing the pool as a "filthy, dirty" place that was "leaking like a sieve."
Trump said he’d asked a contractor to choose the color "American flag blue" for the bottom of the pool. He estimated the project would cost $1.5 million and said the work would last "30, 40, 50 years."
By the following day, April 24, he adjusted the price to $2 million and said it would be done in "one week" in a Truth Social post.
But an analysis of federal contract data by USA TODAY found that 20 days before Trump first announced the project and its estimated $1.5 million cost, a company named Atlantic Industrial Coatings had already been contracted for nearly $6.9 million to take on the project on April 3. In addition, Green Water Solutions, an Ohio-based company, had been awarded a no-bid contract for over $1.7 million.
In the following weeks, Atlantic Industrial would be paid more: on May 8, it received $6,218,381; the company was given $1,086,576 on June 3.
Trump announced the project was complete on June 6, and the pool was refilled with water during the week of June 8.
Within a few days, algae blooms had turned the water green. Algae has been a recurring problem at the pool for decades. In addition, pieces of the new blue paint had begun peeling up from the bottom.
Trump blamed vandalism for the algae and the peeling paint despite the pool's history of algae problems. Somebody had put fertilizer in the water to create algae, Trump said on June 22. He also said vandals had "very violently" cut a "350-foot slit from one end to the other" in the pool, causing the paint to peel.
The National Park Service began pouring hydrogen peroxide into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to kill aggressive, recurring algae blooms in the 6.75-million-gallon capacity pool. Despite Trump’s claims, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, acknowledged problems with the installation and agreed to complete repairs under its warranty.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a legal filing dismissing charges against an Olympian accused of vandalizing the pool that “the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”
On Nov. 2, Trump again blamed vandals for the damage to the reflecting pool.
"The vandals went to work, but we also went to work on the vandals," he said.
Trump has described Washington, D.C., as America’s front door and has undertaken various construction and renovation projects both in the White House complex and around the capital.
As someone with a background in real estate, working on “fixing things” such as the 90,000 square-foot East Wing Modernization Project which includes the 20,000 square-foot ballroom are projects Trump has said help him “relax.”
During the speech, Trump also repeated his promise of $5,000 "Trump Dividend" check to every adult U.S. citizen if Republicans maintaining control of both the House and the Senate.
"It's the golden age of America," he said. "We have a country that we can be proud of again."
A few protesters descended on the reflecting pool after the president departed. Maryland resident Nadine Seiler, 61, wore a pink frog costume and carried a banner criticizing Trump for focusing on the reflecting pool.
"What are our priorities here in the United States?" Seiler said. "The price of gas is high. The price of food is high, credit card debt... housing costs, but we care about the reflecting pool?"
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal.
Contributing: Zac Anderson
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump spotlights Reflecting Pool repairs in closing midterm message
