Trump Riffs to Reporters on Reflecting Pool For Seven Solid Minutes — With Absurd Visual Aid

President Donald Trump riffed to reporters for seven solid minutes on the Reflecting Pool — including an absurd visual aide based on an odd boast about the project.

In addition to his now-billion-dollar ballroom, the Reflecting Pool has become a consistent focus of the president, as have other expensive renovations to monuments and fountains around the District of Columbia.

The president has been boasting for months — falsely — that the pool is ” longer than the tallest building in the world if you set it on its side,” as he did at his recent cabinet meeting. Even if it were true, the length of a body of water is not meaningfully comparable to the height of a building.

Trump summoned the press pool for an Oval Office event that was originally closed to the press, and his opener gave new meaning to the term “pool reporter” as he weaved about the renovation — and brought out a chart simultaneously depicting his apples-to-oranges boast and debunking it:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I have a big day today because this is, as you probably have been watching, so from 1922 to present it really never worked. It leaked and it was bad and it looked terrible. It was supposed to be beautiful. It was opened in 1922 and it always leaked.

It’s called the Great Reflecting Pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial and right in between it’s almost 2,500 feet long. I could show you it would be like the tallest building in the world laid on its side and the building wouldn’t reach it, and today it gets completed.

The pool gets completed at four o’clock and the water will start to flow in and it won’t leak because it’s done properly and it’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be American flag blue. It’s the color we picked and I think it’ll be something amazing.

It’s never worked. A great concept that never worked because it always leaked. They used stone originally and the stone leaks because it’s got a lot of crevices and we have a very special material that we use and we’ll do this for a tiny fraction.

You remember President Obama tried to do it and he failed miserably. They spent over 100 million dollars between him and Biden. They spent much more than 100 million dollars and it never worked and it was filthy dirty. We took out 12 truckloads of garbage out of this pool. It was just rotting and terrible, a terrible thing for the country.

So we have many monuments and fountains all over Washington and we’re just about completed with all of them. The fountains are all working now, 28 fountains, and as of this moment, just about this moment, a couple are going to be a few days longer and we went on a real kick. Some of the most beautiful fountains in the world but they haven’t worked in 30, 40 years, most of them.

As you know, you saw the one in front of the station — Union Station — was horrible and now it’s beautiful. It was all covered in graffiti. But this would be the big one because this is, again — could you get me that picture of how it compares in size to the biggest buildings anywhere in the world? It’s sort of amazing. So we’re very proud of that.

We’re proud of a lot of things we’ve done but this is something. So Washington now, as you know, a very safe city. It’s considered a very safe city. It was a very unsafe city 14 months ago. Now it’s a very safe city so we’re very proud of that but it’s also become a beautiful city.

The encampments, the homeless are no longer sitting in the middle of the park. The level of beauty of the city is incredible. We restored many of the areas. We’re really doing a job at Lafayette Park which is really the entrance to the White House and that’s going to be completed very shortly and it’ll be incredible as it was originally envisioned.

Most of it we’re doing as originally envisioned and if you walk across the street to Lafayette Park you’ll see something that’s incredible. We’ll have it open before July 4th. This we wanted to get it open before July 4th.

On the reflecting pond, or the reflecting pool as some people call it, very important to us was the longevity — having it so that it’s not closed every day. All these are — I just had this done. You’re getting the first glimpse but that’s your size compared.

So those are compared to — those are among the tallest buildings in the world including the Empire State Building, World Trade Center, Sears Tower, Chicago. So if you lay it on its side you’d take two or three of them to fill it in because the width is very, almost 200 feet wide and actually much more than 2,000 — close to, including everything. It’s about 2,500 feet in length to the end and it’s going to be beautiful.

It was a great concept that never worked because they couldn’t hold the water. Now they hold the water for a tiny fraction of the cost. We did a fantastic job and Department of Interior was amazing. Doug Burgum, really absolutely amazing and you can have something you’re going to be very proud of and it’ll last for 50 to 100 years before you have to do anything with it. Very strong, powerful substance that we use and we picked a color called American Flag Blue.

We had color choices and before it was just gray. It was a color of concrete and stone. So it’s going to be really special. I thought you’d like to see it and the work ends on the pool. We also did a lot more than we anticipated. We did all of the sidewalks outside of the pool where people walk or they stand.

That’s where Martin Luther King made his great speech. A million people. I had the same amount of people. Actually, I had a little bit tighter.

It was a little bit tighter. They said he had a million people and I had 25,000 people and yet if you look at the picture of comparison, the exact same location, the exact same pool, except now the pool is clean.
It was filthy dirty then but it was amazing because that was my first glimpse into politics. I made a speech and I had more people. In other words, you put the picture side by side, which we have, and they said I had 25,000. He had a million, but I had more people. They were tighter. My people were tighter, but these are minor details. That’s what I said. Well, wait a minute. There’s something wrong, but this was a very famous place and it should be treated properly.

A person came to my office, a very substantial person from a foreign country, another country, and said the Washington Monument, the Lincoln, you know, you take a look at the Washington Monument, beautiful Lincoln Memorial, as you said, but the walking in between was disgusting. The thing was loaded up. We took 11 or 12 dumpsters, trucks full of garbage out of there that they were shoveling and it was there for years under the Biden administration.

Again, Biden and Obama, if you combine the money they spent, it was over a hundred, I think $142 million and they got nothing as usual. So I’m very proud of it. Maybe I shouldn’t say that before it opens. Maybe I’ll open it and it’ll look like a sieve, but it’s not going to be. I’m very good at building things and constructing things.

So I hope you’re going to go take a look at it. The sidewalks are being sandblasted, the granites on the outside, the granite and that last strong stone and that’s being sandblasted. It’s going to look like really something beautiful. It’s going to be brand new. It’s got a lot of life. So just enjoy it.

According to Trump’s own chart, the pool is 2,030 feet long, which is fewer feet than the heights of the three tallest buildings in the world.

Trump did another minute or so at the end of the event as well:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We have a great, beautiful place. Again, the fountains are almost all open. You’re going to have the reflecting pool opened within hours. I mean, literally within hours. The water starts pouring in tonight. It’s going to be beautiful. You haven’t seen that since 1922. Think of that. 1922, it hasn’t worked. Never worked. From the day they built it, it never worked. But you’re going to see that. And people are all thanking me because Washington is beautiful again.

The parks are open. We changed the grass. You know, grass has a life also. Like people, grass has a life. And that grass hasn’t been changed in 70, 80 years. It died many times over. We have beautiful grass, beautiful parks, beautiful everything. We don’t have people living on it.

And Washington, D.C., in a matter of 14 months, Washington, D.C. is like a different place. People are coming here. You know, the restaurants are all going out of business, as you know, because you used the restaurants. And now the restaurants are hot. In fact, if anything, we don’t have enough restaurant space. They’re all reopening. It’s become vibrant. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. And I am honored that I’ve been able to do it to our nation’s capital.

Watch above via White House Press Pool.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!