CNN’s Dana Bash: “The $16M no-bid contract to renovate the Reflecting Pool was something you called fantastic, and you certainly defended the expediting contract in order to try to get it fixed in time for July 4. Now, of course, chunks of paint are peeling off the floor. The algae has returned. What went wrong?”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum: “Well, the algae is all gone. I mean, that was a momentary thing… The new technology, the nano-bubblers that have been installed, if you go down there today and look at it, it is completely clean and clear.”
“And so for the first time there's actual a solution that involves making sure that we have got an algae-free pond. It keeps being reported that this was paint. It was not paint. This was an industrial liner that was put into the pool for the very first time, multiple layers fixing, 2.5 miles of expansion.”
Dana Bash: “But it peeled off. Why did that happen? Do you know?”
Doug Burgum: “ It didn't peel off. There was there was vandalism. There was box cutters. There have been seven arrests. There was people literally trying to destroy part of a monument, the Reflecting Pool. It's not just a pool on the Mall. It is part of the Lincoln Memorial.”