The media's obsession with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been something else.
President Donald Trump has repaired and cleaned up dozens of national monuments in D.C. But instead of praising that or just recognizing that as a good thing, they're hunting to find fault.
They thought they had something they could go after President Trump on with the Reflecting Pool, with CNN even going to the trouble of testing the water to prove that algae was...algae.
They were at it again during a panel discussion on Friday. That's when CNN commentator and Salem Media host Scott Jennings reminded them how Barack Obama spent far more, at $34 million, and took far longer. Jennings asked Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross: Did she oppose what Obama did?
Big news last night on CNN! I learned that for 1.6 billion years, algae was completely undefeated in warm stagnant pools...until Obama personally cured it with "science."
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) June 20, 2026
You really do learn something new every day. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/gDL74KYLVI
"I know when President Obama invested, he invested, he did it with science in mind, so there was not an algae takeover," Cross said. She said it was "treated."
Except there was an algae takeover, as Jennings then pointed out in the post above. He shared a news report from 2012, showing the significant algae bloom there less than a month later, shortly after the Obama administration's work was done.
But, I guess under Obama, spending is "investment." And so much for "science." As Jennings pointed out, Obama didn't figure out a cure for algae. Jennings had an amusing comment on that.
Live look at 2012 pic.twitter.com/0gP0uG0ASV
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) June 20, 2026
Bottom line? Even after the Obama repair, it continued to have a problem with leaking and was a mess, which was why Trump was fixing it. While Obama added shoring and pilings, and an upgraded filtration system, there was still an issue. Millions of gallons of water continued to be lost annually from leaks.
As Interior Secretary Doug Burgum explained in an interview, President Trump dealt with a big problem that had existed for a long time.
"That thing, when we took this project over, was leaking 45,000 gallons of water a day," Burgum said. "Everybody should be celebrating Trump getting a project done 10x faster, at a fraction of the cost of a previous administration."
The Department of the Interior said they were dealing with the algae with nanobubbler technology and cleaning it out. It's a pool, so it's likely a continuing effort that will need to be addressed. But the new approach appears to be clearing it, they said.
The media and the left don't want to cover all the monuments that Trump has made better already, or highlight the crime reduction that he's helped to bring about. They don't want to deal with the question of why those monuments were left in disrepair and why the crime was such a problem, because it might make Democrats look bad. They just want to try to find things to grouse about when it comes to Trump, even if it's him making things better.
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