Asked and “answered.”

Here is president Trump during his Oval Office meeting on June 24th, 2026 with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, “responding” to a press question about the DC Reflecting Pool mishap. He rambled on meanderingly for about 11 minutes, repeatedly recapping his “greatest hits” of off-topic indelible grievances.

“The pool? Yes. It's in great shape. No. Ready? Thugs. They just told me a little while ago. Six have been arrested and like six or seven are under arrest. They have pictures and everything else. They went to the bottom and it's not a paint job. It's very expensive. It's not rubber but it's like rubber. And they went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind of a knife. They cut and then they started ripping it up. You know why? Because there's sick people. And then the side of the pool, right at the water level, they took razors and they started cutting this very expensive stuff. It's incredible stuff. It's beautiful. And it's still beautiful. We have one area where they cut it. It's still holding. It's not leaking. But they hurt it so probably maybe after July 4th or maybe before. I don't know. We'll let a little water out because it's at the edge. They'll cut it. They'll replace it and it'll be as good as new. But these people should go to jail for a long time. You know, there's a statute that I saw when I had my first here that if you do anything to hurt statues or monuments, fountains in Washington, D.C. or federal fountain, it's actually federal all over the country. But you go to jail for 10 years and there's no shortcuts. In other words, it's not five years for good behavior. It's a very tough statute. And so tough that it really hasn't been used very much over the years. But I used it when they had a problem in Washington where they were trying to hurt — the sickos, would try to hurt things, and I announced it. As soon as I announced it, read it, announced it. And I said, 10 years for anybody, everybody dropped what they had, including ropes. They had ropes. They were tying ropes around Thomas Jefferson's head, Andrew Jackson right up there, a rope around his head on that incredible statue. I said, as soon as I invoked it, everybody left, that's still in play. They could go to jail for 10 years. They better be careful. They have a gash on that beautiful pool. It's a reflecting point. This is a very expensive material. Then on top of it, we did a much bigger job than we said we were going to do because we did all the outer areas. We did a beautiful job. It's like a piece of glass. And for some reason, this disturbed the radical left lunatics. You know, the guy that one of the guys, he's a member or a big pair to Act Blue. He's a big Hillary supporter. He's a big supporter of Sleepy Joe Biden. No, this is a very political thing. But as I understand it, six are under arrest. This was pure vandalism. It's an amazing thing that we did. Don't forget, it hasn't worked properly since it was built because it always leaked in 1922. So it was built in 1922. So that's 100 years more ago. It's never worked properly. I always said, had great potential. And I said in my first term, I'm going to do something. So Biden and Obama, between the two of them, spent over $100 million. It was a disaster. Obama, because of the environment, took the water from the Potomac, and it was horrible. It was bad. I don't want to have to tell you what happened, but it was really bad. You can read about it. Biden, he didn't have any idea what the hell they were doing because he didn't know what anything was happening. But they spent over $100 million. We spent 14 or 15 in a lot less than that because a lot of these people worked for the Parks Department anyway. So they're going to work. So I would say a lot less. And we put a great surface on it. This is a world-class surface. It looked beautiful. But they came in and they cut it. And then they grabbed it and they pulled it up. That's why it's all ripped. And who would even think of it? They're sick people. So I think they're in big trouble. But here's the bottom line. We temporarily patched it. Even though we stoppedb— it's so good that with all that damage they did, it's not leaking. And it looks really beautiful. I just had pictures taken. It's reflective. It's beautiful. Like it did a week ago. And then we're going to let a little water, because you have to let the water out to fix it. We're going to fix it. And then the water goes back in and won't take long. We may do it before July 4th, or we may do it just after July 4th. Now, we have it a little bit fenced up, because we have a big fireworks this day. And tonight, I'm making a speech. And people like my speeches. But I guess we're going to have a lot of people over there. But tonight, we're going to have a lot of good entertainment. What are the greatest opera singers in the world? We think he's great. Lee Greenwood's going to be singing our favorite song. And we have a lot of great things. But I think I speak at about 7 o'clock tonight. So that's over at the Mall. Now, when the water looks great, but we will do the final fix up. But just remember this. They took razor blades, 350 feet coming from where he comes. They don't do that. They took razor blades. And knives, and they cut patches like that 350 feet long. A lot of them are like a foot, a foot. They cut the lining. And these pictures of the guy bending over. I don't know if anybody saw that. But there're pictures out there. And you say, who would do that? Maybe it's trumped arrangements. You know, we fixed over 50 fountains and monuments in the city. The city is the safest it's ever been ever. We have virtually no crime. We're a crime-free. When I came here, when we came here at the beginning, it was a horrible crime-ridden city. And we have no crime. Everything's fixed. We have new grass. We took so much. Nobody's ever seen anything like everything had graffiti on it. It's all gone. The tents all over the lawns, which were terrible. A royal gun. The fences are all gone because nobody goes on the lawns anymore. But we fixed all this. You know, grass has a life just like people have a life. And we fixed the lawn, and it will be fixed. Now, one of the other things they did a job around the reflecting pool, we have a huge field of grass. They poured acid on the grass. The same people, I guess. They poured acid. So that's in the process. It killed, acid kills grass quickly. So that's me fixed. But the reflecting pool is great, and it's going to look beautiful. It's so sad to see what they did. And then the fake news tries to say, oh, well, it didn't work. Of course, it worked. Everything I does work. What I do works, what I do best, is build. And we fixed — I think it's 52, all over the city talking about it. But you know, the biggest thing is we have one of the safest cities. If you would have come here two years ago, you had a good chance of being mucked all over, very big guy. They would have mucked him up. They would have beat their head like—. That's me. He wouldn't set up never going back. Now you can walk with your beautiful wife. You can walk with your friends. We were losing all our restaurants. Nobody wanted to go out. Even if you got into the restaurant, they'd rob you when you're in. Now you can't get into a restaurant. But the restaurant, too, is a opening restaurant so all over the city. I'm so proud of it. Also, Memphis, take a look at Memphis. Take a look at in Louisiana. Take a look at what's happened. What we've done in Louisiana with New Orleans is incredible. The governor, Governor Landry, called me. They just had morning grow-up. He said, it's the safest morning grow we've had in 75 years. It's great. We've done a good job. And you know what? In Chicago, they had many murders over the last week. Many we could solve. I could make Chicago with this group of strong people, this strong people. That's OK. You know, one thing we got from the Supreme Court, we have merit. So if you have great students, great marks, great scores, great boards, you get into a good college. If you have bad, you don't get into a good one. In other words, it's based on a tough decision for them. But that also applies to the military. We have tough, tough people in the military. And the National Guard has done an incredible job in Washington. And my people have done an incredible job. So if you look at Memphis, crime is down 78%. I have a friend from Memphis who's going to leave. And he called me and said, I've never seen anything like this. It's like a different city. And also in New Orleans, it's like people can't believe it. I could do that for Chicago. I'd love to do Chicago, because Chicago's potentially a great city. But you're going to lose it. It's got to be done. And we do something much more than they can do, because we take people out and bring them back to the country from where they came, where they came out of jails, where they're drug lords and drug dealers, and people from mental institutions. And I'd love to do it in Los Angeles. And I'd love to do it in New York City. I live in New York. I'd like to see that a lot of problems in New York over the last couple of weeks. If we were there, they wouldn't have any of those problems. And we remove the bad people from the city, so they never come back. Now, some liberal people probably don't like the sound of that. But 92% of crime is caused in these cities. It's caused by 2% of the people. I love that number, because it's easily solved. Think of that, 92% of the crime in Washington was caused by 2% of the people. We moved out almost 5,000 career criminals and people from other countries. And Washington now is one of the safest cities, I could say, on the planet. But let's just say, in the US. And it's beautiful now. The reflecting pool, but we have 52. I think it's much more than that. It's going to soon be more than that. You see them opening up. And my team has done an unbelievable job. [Interior Secretary] Doug Burgum has been great. Department of the Interior and his people. Greg, and all — I mean, these people, they're phenomenal. But think of that, you work so hard, you get it open way ahead of your life, what your life was, what was it key. And then somebody's in there with a knife cutting it and ripping the floor. It's terrible. But the 350 foot gash in the side, it's a terrible thing. Ready? Here, I'm going to end on this. I'm so proud of Washington, D.C. It's become one of the hottest cities in the world. But what is the hottest in the world is the United States of America. We have the hottest city. And you know that. You were talking about that. Two years ago, we were laughed at. We were a joke. We were a dead country. Now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. Thank you very much, everybody.”

On YouTube, at 35 minutes in. Babbleiiciousness on stark, poignant display.

 

BY THE WAY

 

I finished "Regime Change." Read it. Seriously.