Trump delivers final midterms speech to just 60 people at the renovated Reflecting Pool and threatens a major rename
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By PHILLIP NIETO, US POLITICAL REPORTER
Published: | Updated:
Donald Trump floated putting his own name on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday as he wound up his midterm campaign in front of a few dozen seated supporters.
‘Today, I’m thrilled to announce the official opening of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,’ the president said from a platform at the foot of the memorial, adding that he was giving ‘serious thought’ to rebranding it the ‘Trump Reflecting Pool.’
He said the announcement would land on Tuesday and that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would ‘have a lot of fun’ making it, then delivered the tag: ‘Now, I’m only kidding.’
About 60 chairs had been set out for the audience with space for a few dozen reporters, and the refilled pool sat behind ballistic glass.
Trump talked up his Washington renovation projects for nearly 30 minutes and then held photographs, pointing out which granite stones had been pulled and replaced.
‘This is a massive piece of pool,’ he said, calling it the biggest in the world.
The $14 million job has been chased by delays, cost questions and a blue liner that failed within weeks. The no-bid contract went to a Virginia company that had resurfaced a pool at one of Trump’s golf clubs.
Trump has pinned the peeling surface on vandals and a former US Olympian has been indicted over alleged damage, while critics have pointed at the repair work itself.
Trump speaks to a sparse crowd at the Reflecting Speech
Trump joked that the reflecting pool should be renamed after him
The president was joined by his most loyal staffer, including Natalie Harp
Renaming landmarks after himself has already cost him once, after US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled on May 29 that only Congress can rename the Kennedy Center.
Workers stripped his name from the building’s facade in June.
He ordered Lake Ontario renamed ‘Lake America’ in August, renamed the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America’ on his first day back in office.
He also floated ‘Trump Strait’ for the Strait of Hormuz on Sept. 2 before telling a reporter the idea was ‘just thrown out there.’
Voters decide control of the House and Senate on Tuesday, and Trump spent the last day of the campaign in Washington rather than a battleground state.
Trump’s decision to hold his final midterm event at the Reflecting Pool has puzzled Republicans facing the grim prospect of losing their majorities in the House and the Senate.
He has spent the last few weeks shuttling between key battleground states and shoring up longtime Republican strongholds, among them Kansas, Iowa, Alaska and Texas.
Polls point to Republican incumbents losing control of both chambers.
He scrapped the Kansas and Iowa rallies last Thursday, telling reporters ‘I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas’ because the candidate was ‘doing very well,’ then put both back on Sunday’s schedule alongside nearly 20 tele-rallies.
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