Trump Criticizes Kennedy Center and Reflecting Pool Renovations Amid Legal and Vandalism Disputes

Following a weekend trip to his Virginia golf club, President Donald Trump jumped on his Truth Social account to sound off on one his favorite topics: his anger around the state of his signature construction projects to renovate the Kennedy Center and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

“Kennedy Center is an old and decrepit building that is badly in need of a major construction and public relations fix before it can attain greatness and prestige, perhaps far greater than ever before,” the president wrote in one post on Sunday night. “It has been losing a fortune for many years, and will continue to do so if the highly conflicted judge on the case doesn’t allow us to do what has to be done!”

A federal judge will determine whether the Trump-dominated Kennedy Center board violated court orders by approving an inscription to the building that it has been “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump.” The board voted for the change despite a court ruling in May that the performing arts venue cannot be renamed without congressional approval.

Lawyers for Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio Kennedy Center board member, argued this week the new plan is an end-run around the May decision and a “breathtaking assault on the rule of law” meant to cover for the financial chaos caused by the president’s takeover, which has prompted a string of artist cancelations and a reported slowdown in ticket sales.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, argues the building is in dire need of renovation, to the point that it could someday need to be torn down unless the build plan moves forward.

“The concept of, if the building is not properly renovated and restored, eventually it falls into a state of disrepair and it cannot be used,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said outside the court on Thursday. “It’ll just run out of money … and over time it’ll just go down and down and down, until at some point, a building that was built in 1964 that isn't renovated does eventually get torn down.”

The president’s projects on the National Mall, meanwhile, have been no less fraught, as Trump acknowledged in his Sunday posting spree.

“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” he wrote. “Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!”

He posted an image that appeared to show “86 47” in the lawn.

“The grass is being replaced shortly, and the Reflecting Pool is almost completely fixed, including the various inflow and outflow pipes, which we were saving for the end of the year, but will do now,” he added.

The president has insisted vandals were behind peels and cracks in the newly refinished Reflecting Pool, which has had to be drained multiple times since the president took over fixing it.

But administration officials have admitted that the damage was likely from poor construction, forcing U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to drop a high-profile case against a former Olympian after finding that the damage was “the result of flawed installation by the contractor.”

The result infuriated Trump, who has openly attacked D.C.’s top prosecutor over the decision.

Earlier this month, Pirro called on the judge overseeing the case to leave open the possibility of new charges against David Hearn, who had pleaded not guilty and denied all wrongdoing prior to the dismissal of charges.

Vandals indeed appeared to target the grass nearby, where the apparent anti-Trump slogan “86 47” was found inscribed in dead grass in July.

The patch of grass was also the site of the president’s Great American State Fair in July, which saw thousands of visitors at the site across two weeks of events.

On Thursday, a woman was indicted on two felony counts for allegedly spray painting another nearby monument, the WWII Memorial.