First posted on Instagram
President Donald Trump chose the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday, November 2, 2026 — the day before the midterm elections — to deliver his closing campaign address, and he spent more than 20 minutes at the top of his remarks on the pool itself, announcing its official reopening before turning to his pitch for voters to keep Republicans in control of Congress. He was also scheduled to take part in nine telerallies for Republican candidates later in the day.
Standing at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, Trump held up a series of blown-up images of rusted pipes taken during the renovation and said the old pipes were defective, blaming materials installed during the Obama and Biden administrations for the leaks that plagued the landmark for years. He said brand-new pipes had now been installed, calling it a complete job, and presented the renovation — new granite, repaired surfaces and a cleaned-up landmark — as restoring one of America's most famous sites.
Signs on either side of the podium read "Restoring Our Capitol" with "The Reflecting Pool" underneath, and a poster on a display board showed the pool under the words "Back, and more beautiful than ever!" Trump joked that he was giving serious thought to changing the name to the Trump Reflecting Pool.
The pool, a nearly 2,030-foot basin between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, is one of Washington's most iconic sites; Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech from the memorial steps in 1963, looking out over it. Trump's renovation began in April 2026, when he promised a fix in days for about $1.5 million; the work instead stretched for months, with federal contracts reported at more than $16 million. The pool reopened on June 9, then closed again after the July 4 celebrations as algae blooms clogged the water and sections of its new "American-flag blue" coating peeled and floated up in chunks. It reopened again on October 29.
Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for the damage to the new coating. The Justice Department charged former Olympian David Hearn with intentionally damaging the pool, but U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro later moved to dismiss the case, saying evidence pointed to a rushed and botched installation rather than vandalism. The Associated Press has also reported that the Obama administration spent at least $34 million on a two-year reconstruction of the pool that ended in 2012, and that no major repairs to the pool were carried out during the Biden administration.
The address closed Trump's midterm campaign blitz, which took him to more than 20 states. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026, with Republicans defending their narrow control of Congress.