MS NOW’s Chris Hayes roasted President Donald Trump’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation as a failure and said Americans are being left with “a big, ugly mess” after the president’s “American Flag Blue” water turned green this week thanks to a pervasive algae problem.
On Tuesday, days after the more than $14 million renovation was said to be complete, workers could be seen dumping hydrogen peroxide into the 2,028-foot pool to fight off an algae bloom.
Hayes said the color looked “more Kermit the Frog green” or like a “water hazard at an abandoned mini golf course,” comparing it to New York City’s Gowanus Canal, one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.
“In a year full of metaphors that are way too on the nose, this one really has become a perfect story of the Trump administration,” the “All In” host said of the president’s attempt to remodel the century-old pool he previously called “filthy” and “disgusting.”
According to Hayes, “like so many of Trump’s deeply unpresidential obsessions,” his preoccupation with the Reflecting Pool “started with grievances about his predecessors.” The MS NOW host played a clip of the president ranting about former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s renovations of the memorial, which he falsely said cost American taxpayers more than $100 million.
“Those numbers are totally made up,” Hayes said, noting that Obama spent around $34 million on revamping the pool during his time in office. No major renovations took place during the Biden administration.