Trump drives across Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to inspect new blue coating he’s putting on it

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday went on an unannounced trip to the Lincoln Memorial to see the Reflecting Pool after he had it coated in a color he calls “American flag blue.”

He did more than just see it — the Republican president was driven across the new coating before he got out of his SUV to make a statement and answer questions from reporters who had been taken there to await his arrival before the sun set.

The new blue coating will hide the pool’s gray stone, a color Trump said was “never good.” The project cost nearly $2 million, he said.

“It never had the color people wanted, but now it’s going to have the great color,” he said, standing in the pool surrounded by some of his Cabinet secretaries, including Doug Burgum of Interior and Markwayne Mullin of Homeland Security.

Trump said he is also working on the memorial to President Abraham Lincoln itself, but he offered no specifics, saying only that “we have a beautiful plan” in mind.

Work has been underway at the memorial for the past few years on an underground visitors’ center scheduled to open in June.

Trump last month announced the reflecting pool renovation during an unrelated Oval Office appearance. He said he was inspired by the complaints of a friend visiting from Germany, who he ...