MS NOW-The Reflecting Pool problems reflect Trump's whole deal

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Trump has a hubristic habit of claiming he’s getting things done that nobody has before, rushing through the efforts — and then ignoring when things fall apart.

The Reflecting Pool problems reflect Trump’s whole deal
Trump has a hubristic habit of claiming he’s getting things done that nobody has before, rushing through the efforts — and then ignoring when things fall apart. www.ms.now/opinion/refl...

— US News Now - World’s leading Liberal Voice (@democracyblue.bsky.social) 2026-06-22T13:33:56.479Z

https://www.ms.now/opinion/reflecting-pool-trump-drain-renovation-iran

Day after day, President Donald Trump crowed about his success, saying he had achieved something his predecessors could not. Then, the illusion snapped. The project fell apart. Things were not better; if anything, they were worse off than before. The cut corners and headlong rush yielded a temporary thrill for the president and a waste of money for taxpayers.

I’m referring to Trump’s very expensive and rapidly unraveling attempts to overhaul the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, though the description could apply to many issues from the Trump presidency. My colleague Ja’han Jones described the once again algae-coated site as “a physical swamp that serves as a potent metaphor for [the Trump] administration’s corruption and incompetence.” The hastily done renovation and its swift demise are simply the most recent example of a pattern in which Trump and his allies’ bold declarations collapse under the pressures of time, scrutiny and common sense.....

The Trump administration blamed the algae’s return on residual amounts remaining in the pipes while the renovation was underway. When the blooms continued and the coating began to peel, the president accused “Radical Left Wing Lunatics” of using chemicals in the Reflecting Pool “to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work.” As ever, the real fault must have lain with anyone but Trump. But there’s no such excuse for the many other examples of administration hubris that have ended in the same fashion......

The most obvious point of comparison must be Trump’s needless war against Iran. When the U.S. launched operations in late February, the administration touted a showcase of American strength toward Tehran unlike anything previous presidents had been willing to do. In 2018, Trump had torn up an Obama-era nuclear agreement to stymie Iran’s capabilities and has steadfastly insisted that he would be able to get a much better deal. The administration’s shifting rationale for war inevitably drifted back to the claim that America would be much better off in the long run.

Now that a “memorandum of understanding” ending the conflict has been released, it’s clear how far from true that is. The biggest achievement for the U.S. and its multibillion-dollar bombing campaign was more or less restoring the prewar status quo. Any hope of pulling an actual victory from the jaws of declared victory rests on negotiating in the coming two months an agreement the likes of which had previously been hammered out over the course of years — before Trump threw that deal in the trash.

There’s one more thing that unites all these cases: Trump’s inability to admit that he messed up. As my colleague Steve Benen noted, things weren’t perfect before the president’s unnecessary interventions, but if he had kept his hands to himself, they would be imperfect in a stable, predictable manner. Instead, chaos agent that he is, Trump has repeatedly taken a sledgehammer to a load-bearing wall and expected thanks for creating a cool, refreshing breeze.