Trump's $16M Reflecting Pool Repaint Went to a No-Bid Golf-Club Contractor.

President Trump’s project to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool “American flag blue” for the country’s 250th anniversary has reached roughly $16 million, far above the $1.5 to $2 million he predicted. Part of the work went out as a no-bid contract to a company that had previously worked at his own golf club, NBC News reported.

$16 Million, Eight Times the Estimate

Trump announced the renovation in April 2026 as a beautification effort and estimated it would cost $1.5 to $2 million. Federal records tell a different story.

Contracts reached about $14 million for the repaint and waterproofing, plus another $1.74 million to Green Water Solutions for a “nano bubble” system to kill algae. The total now exceeds $16 million.

A No-Bid Contract to a Golf-Club Contractor

Atlantic Industrial Coatings received its first-ever federal contract, awarded without competitive bidding, to seal the pool’s leaking joints and waterproof its concrete bottom. The same company had previously done work at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.

Federal contracts are normally competitively bid precisely to keep awards from flowing to firms with private ties to the people in power. This one was not.

The Refurb Itself Is What Failed

The evidence that something went wrong points at the renovation, not at vandals. The pool was resurfaced with a blue polyurea coating that began delaminating, peeling away from the concrete. Within days of refilling, algae spread across the surface and turned the “American flag blue” water green, which is why the administration paid another $1.74 million for an algae system.

Trump’s motorcade did drive across the drained, freshly sealed basin in May, a moment the White House filmed and promoted. It is one of several theories floated for the damage. But the official cause remains undetermined, and the coating failure and the algae bloom both trace to the redesign itself.

The Contrast He Set Up

The attention to a monument’s paint is hard to read next to the record. The same administration pardoned roughly 1,600 people, including January 6 defendants convicted of destroying property at the U.S. Capitol and assaulting the officers who defended it.

It also redirected $1.8 billion into a fund for January 6 defendants while Capitol Police received nothing. The public can weigh which property damage drew the outrage.

What You Can Do Now

Use the letter below to ask Congress to request a Government Accountability Office or Inspector General audit of the full $16 million reflecting pool cost and how the contracts were awarded.
Call your members of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and ask the House Natural Resources and Oversight committees to demand the records behind the no-bid award to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, including any connection to the president’s private businesses.
Ask that any further repair work on the Lincoln Memorial be competitively bid, and that the National Park Service account for what redoing the failed coating will cost taxpayers.