President Trump Announces Major Upgrade To Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

President Trump is making Washington, D.C. great again!

President Trump recently ordered the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to be cleaned up.

The reflecting pool, in recent years, has accumulated a lot of dirt and suffered damage because it wasn’t properly maintained.

Now, President Trump has announced plans to do an upgrade to the Lincoln Memorial, which would have cost taxpayers nearly $300 million under previous proposals, but Trump has orchestrated a deal to fix it for no more than $2 million.

E&E reported more on Trump’s plans:

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he enlisted swimming pool experts that he’d worked with before to repair the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, in a video posted to Truth Social, the president’s online media company.

Sitting in the Oval Office and speaking directly to the camera, Trump said the pool — which was built in 1922 and served as the foreground for Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech — was in “terrible shape,” but repairs would be costly.

“It was filthy dirty, and it leaked like a sieve for many years,“ he said, describing a visit he took to the pool recently with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “I said, ‘Well, we’re gonna solve the problem.’”

Trump, a former real estate developer, is attempting to leave an architectural legacy on the nation’s capitol. That has included a proposed 250-foot triumphal arch along the Potomac River and a massive ballroom on the White House grounds, where last year the president ordered the demolition of the historic East Wing.

Watch Trump make the announcement here:

🚨 Your favorite President just did something truly EPIC!

President Trump just cleaned up and renovated the FILTHY Lincoln Memorial Reflective Pool in Washington D.C., and turned it into a full blown GIANT swimming Pool!

The proposals to renovate this extraordinary landmark of… pic.twitter.com/fOSwzYMDLP

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) April 23, 2026

Here’s Trump making more comments on the project:

Trump: That's where Martin Luther King gave his speech. He had a million people. I had the same exact crowd. I actually had more people pic.twitter.com/vYeJhYE5p4

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) April 23, 2026

NPR reported that Trump’s triumphal arch is also set to be built:

The Commission of Fine Arts, or CFA, a federal agency, has voted to move ahead with President Trump’s plans to build a 250-foot “victory arch” near the National Mall that will tower over Arlington National Cemetery and obstruct the sightline to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. This group is responsible for advising the president, Congress, and the federal and local governments on the design and aesthetics of construction within Washington, D.C.

The approval vote was expected, as Trump had filled the committee with seven of his own appointees after firing all its previous members last October. Current commissioners include Chamberlain Harris, a 26-year-old with no arts background who previously served as an executive assistant to the president.

In renderings made public last week, the proposed arch bears a striking resemblance to Paris’ Arc de Triomphe in its design, though it would be nearly 100 feet taller. In the architectural plans submitted by the firm Harrison Design, the arch is topped with two eagles and a winged, crowned figure reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty. On one side, the words “One Nation Under God” appear, with the phrase “With Liberty and Justice for All” on the other.

Here’s a look:

ARCH APPROVED: Federal arts commission clears Trump's 250-foot triumphal arch concept for Washington, D.C. https://t.co/udr20nW3hw

— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) April 17, 2026