Peter Hassen

A note to my friends who still back Trump: I am not here to dunk on you. I am writing because you have a working brain, and this story insults it. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool got a $14 million paint job. Shortly thereafter the water turned green and the new “American flag blue” coating started peeling off the bottom in sheets. Trump says vandals did it. He claims, without evidence, that someone took a knife and cut a 300-foot slit, a number that grew to 350 feet while he was still talking. Back on May 4, Trump bragged about that same coating and said, if you had a knife, you could not even cut it, so strong, like powerful rubber. He cannot have it both ways. And the green water? A George Mason scientist tested it and found ordinary, non-toxic algae, the kind that blooms in any shallow sunny pool. To fight it, crews dumped hydrogen peroxide into the water. Hydrogen peroxide is also a paint stripper. That, not sabotage or vandalism, is the obvious reason the paint came off. They wrecked their own paint job, then blamed phantom vandals for it. The lone "vandal" they paraded is a 67-year-old Olympian who touched a flap of paint already peeling on its own. Here is the thing. If they will look you in the eye and lie about something this small, something you can see with your own eyes, ask yourself what else they are lying to you about. Again, you have a working brain. People like Karoline Leavitt are counting on you to stay loyal instead of exercising independent thought. Prove them wrong.