It's green

The reflecting pool ain't looking too American Flag Blue right now.

My favorite story of the week is the reflecting pool in Washington, D.C., which Donald Trump insisted needed to be re-painted the shade “American Flag Blue.”

So, because it’s 2026, a $14.7 million no-bid contract was presented to a Virginia-based firm he had some familiarity with (Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which had worked on a swimming pool at one of his golf clubs). The workers arrived, plopped down their tarps and brushes and and glue and the like.

And now the pool is (drumroll, please) …

Green.

And not Kermit green. Not New York Jets green. Not even beautiful lawn green. Nope, it’s the green I recall from my freshman year at the University of Delaware, when I drank far too much vodka and unleashed the entirety of my innards upon a porcelain bowl. Upon looking down, I saw … yuck. Puke green. The exact shade of the above image, taken by Jessica Koscielniak of Reuters.

Alas, this is the most Donald Trump thing ever. Fake gold turning brown. Fake silver turning red. It’s all a shell game to the 47th president; a paint-over-the-cracks-and-sell-the-house-as-perfect ode to swindles near and far. Trump wanted the Reflecting Pool to ooze perfection for the July 4th celebrations, but he never took a few minutes to study some essentials.

Namely:

• 1. A darker paint draws more heat. More heat draws more algae. More algae turn American Flag Blue to green.

• 2. Doing this in warm weather would only speed the rate of an algae infestation.

• 3. Not all pool companies are created equally. Just because you hired a firm to do your club pool doesn’t mean they’re capable of doing THE pool.

• 4. Tweeting stuff like this (“This was not a paint job. This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years, applied by very talented people”) only makes you look even dumber when it all goes to shit.

And now, here we sit. As we speak, men and women in rubber boots and gloves are wading through the green, dumping large jugs of hydrogen peroxide into the liquid with hopes of a revival.

Alas, it all makes sense.

Algae tend to vote Democrat.