Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) harshly criticized President Donald Trump on Tuesday for claiming vandals were responsible for the problems befalling the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after its $14 million renovation. In a Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump claimed vandals had made a cut in the pool surface that was 250 feet long.
Tillis Questions Trump's Vandalism Narrative
“They took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete,” Trump claimed. Tillis responded with skepticism, telling NBC News' Brennan Leach, “I’d like to think a $15 million membrane could withstand a pocket knife.”
When asked about Trump and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro threatening jail time for the alleged vandals, Tillis recalled the president’s pardoning of more than 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists. “Damaging, aligning the reflecting pool is something that Pirro wants to prosecute to the full extent of the law… yet they’re releasing people who pled guilty to assaulting a police officers. What freaking parallel universe did I just wake up in?” Tillis said.
Comparing Vandalism to Jan. 6 Pardons
Tillis, who announced his retirement from Congress last year, was asked about the issue later in the day and again invoked Trump’s mass pardons. “I’ve asked the police officers here, do they feel like it was okay to give pardons to people that beat them and to prosecute people who, let’s assume for the sake of argument, the facts are true, they cut a pool lining, they get 10 years?” Tillis told MeidasTouch reporter Pablo Manríquez. “You beat a cop, you get out free and potentially be eligible for restitution? Seems unequal to me.”
Over the last two days, Trump has claimed, without evidence, that vandals are also responsible for both the recurring algae blooms in the Reflecting Pool and the peeling “American flag blue” paint. “Six people have been arrested, and seven people have been cited, for the damage they did to our Country’s now beautiful Reflecting Pool. The 350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors, is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350 foot length. It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.
