{"id":25087,"date":"2026-08-02T11:10:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T06:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25087"},"modified":"2026-08-02T11:10:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T06:10:02","slug":"doug-burgum-fires-back-on-reflecting-pool-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25087","title":{"rendered":"Doug Burgum Fires Back on Reflecting Pool Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<div id=\"attachment_5747492\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5747492\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5747492\" src=\"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pool.jpeg\" alt=\"Reflecting Pool\" width=\"1024\" height=\"668\" srcset=\"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pool.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pool-300x196.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pool-768x501.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5747492\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(AP Photo\/Rahmat Gul)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Interior Secretary <strong>Doug Burgum<\/strong> bolstered President <strong>Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong> insistence that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was vandalized \u2014 even after the Department of Justice admitted that wasn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n<p>Burgum posted Saturday, \u201cThe evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He continued:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Some of these acts were even caught on camera. We also provided the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool.<\/p>\n<p>The Reflecting Pool is part of the Lincoln Memorial and dates back to 1922.<\/p>\n<p>@POTUS cares deeply about protecting our sacred national monuments and his leadership has led the restoration of our Nation\u2019s Capital by Making D.C. Safe and Beautiful Again.<\/p>\n<p>Intentional damage done to the Reflecting Pool is no different than defacing any one of our other national monuments.<\/p>\n<p>We won\u2019t back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"embed_container\" id=\"4ecd0ac13e8dfb469f92ea8499b37e00\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool. Some of these acts were even caught on camera. We also provided the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Secretary Doug Burgum (@SecretaryBurgum) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SecretaryBurgum\/status\/2083614772847653242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 1, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>Burgum\u2019s post was in response to Trump\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-lashes-out-at-jeannine-pirro-over-reflecting-pool-case-disagree-100\/\">raging at U.S. Attorney<\/a> <strong>Jeannine Pirro<\/strong> after she admitted in court papers that the damage to the pool\u2019s lining \u201cwas the result of flawed installation by the contractor\u201d and \u201cthe rush to complete the project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool,\u201d Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/117021210137447022\">wrote on Truth Social<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a follow-up post, Trump included a video of tourists dipping their hands in the pool.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLook for yourselves at the VANDALISM that took place at The Reflecting Pool. The material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(AP Photo\/Rahmat Gul) Interior Secretary Doug Burgum bolstered President Donald Trump\u2019s insistence that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was vandalized \u2014 even after the Department of Justice admitted that wasn\u2019t the case. Burgum posted Saturday, \u201cThe evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.\u201d He continued: Some of these acts were&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pool.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}