IN MY NAME

Trump Floats New Vanity Project by Lincoln Memorial

The president claims his latest beautification project “just came up.”

President Donald Trump has found a new renovation project in Washington, D.C. to name after himself.

The president, 79, was speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon when he revealed he’s now pushing for a promenade behind the Lincoln Memorial, as something that “just came up.”

“At the Lincoln Memorial, the front was supposed to be the back. The back was supposed to be the front, and it never got built because they built two roadways behind it after it was built,“ Trump said.

“It shut off the gateway to the water that was really going to be the main entry, and we’re going to be doing that. It’s called the promenade,” Trump said. “They want to call it the Trump Promenade, but I don’t know if I want to do that, but it’s going to be beautiful.”

It’s the latest in a rapidly growing series of projects the president has focused on in and around Washington, D.C. since he returned to office last year.

The president is also renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, demolished the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom, and redecorated multiple rooms in the White House. He is already eyeing a renovation of the World War II Memorial and slapped his name on multiple buildings in the nation’s capital.

Trump also wants to build a massive 250-foot arch across the Potomac River, create a national garden of American heroes, and has been cleaning up fountains around the city.

“It’s a beautiful project, and it’s going to take the Lincoln Memorial right down to the Potomac, which it was always scheduled to do, but when they built the roads, that was the end of that, but we have a way of beautifully going over those two roads, highways, very strong, very important roads actually, as you know from the bridge,” the president said.

Trump kicked off his Oval Office event on Thursday with a brag about completing the resurfacing of the Reflecting Pool as crews started to refill the massive pool on the National Mall with water.

He held up a series of printed photographs of the project in front of the cameras as he sat at his desk and even had a staffer pull up a video of the pool being refilled on a laptop screen that he aimed toward the reporters standing in the room.

“I hate to say it won’t leak, but it won’t leak because we used a material that doesn’t allow leaks,” Trump declared. “It’s like a swimming pool, it doesn’t leak if you use the right—this is called swimming pool on steroids."

The president separately brought back a poster that showed the Reflecting Pool alongside some of the tallest buildings in the U.S., which he had on display the day before as well, at his one public event on Wednesday.

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“We have it finished. The water’s pouring in as we speak,” Trump said of the Reflecting Pool before the video was set in front of him. He pointed to it while he insisted the pool was being filled with “nice, clean water” after calling it a “reflecting lake.”

The president also boasted about fixing the water fountains in Washington, which he at one point called “waterfalls.”

During the event, Trump was surrounded by a group of Cabinet officials and Republican members of Congress who looked on as he rambled. At times, he called on different attendees to speak, though he was repeatedly spotted with his eyes closed while others talked.

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Sarah Ewall-WicePolitical Reporter

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