Reflecting Pool Repairs to Cost $13.1 Million. Trump Had Promised $1.8 Million.
Source: NYT
President Trump said that his handpicked contractor would charge only $1.8 million to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and paint it blue.
The actual cost is now more than seven times that, after the Interior Department nearly doubled the size of the contract late last week, federal records show.
On Friday, the Interior Department added $6.2 million to the contract’s previous cost, saying it now planned to pay $13.1 million to a Virginia firm called Atlantic Industrial Coatings. President Trump said he chose that company to repair the landmark because the firm had worked on the swimming pools at his golf club in Sterling, Va.
The government awarded that firm a no-bid contract last month, bypassing the requirement to seek competing offers by saying that the situation was so urgent that any delay would cause “serious injury” to the government. The government has not publicly said what that injury would have been.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/us/politics/reflecting-pool-paint-contract-trump.html
Trump hired a company that had previously worked on his private golf club for this job repainting the Reflecting Pool in DC.
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) 2026-05-11T21:19:11.310Z
The company was given a no-bid contract that, according to documents reviewed by the New York Times, included a 20 percent profit margin
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