MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes on Monday mocked President Donald Trump's explanation for the algae and peeling paint plaguing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, just days after a $14 million renovation project. Trump has claimed "vandalism" caused the issues, asserting that individuals "went in there with a knife" and added fertilizer to the water to create the algae, though he has not provided evidence for these claims.
Hayes characterized Trump's explanation as "insane" and "madness." He sarcastically imagined a scenario where "saboteurs, I don’t know, under the cover of night, maybe antifa super soldiers, outfitted in scuba gear, climbing on their bellies with box cutters cutting a 250-foot-long gash in the pool’s bottom that Trump previously claimed was uncuttable."
He suggested that the pool's condition was a direct result of "incompetent, corrupt failures" and that the administration was "desperately seeking someone else to blame for Trump’s malfeasance."