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How Trump's ridiculous reflecting pool train wreck spun out of control · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, friends, right now you probably know bits and pieces
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of the reflecting Pool saga. You know about Trump's bizarre
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: obsession with it and what a complete disaster it's been.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You'll know about the guy they indicted for allegedly vandalizing
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: it before dropping the case and admitting the damage was
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  Speaker 1: the result of a botched renovation. But today, h Today,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The New York Times published a new report based on
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  Speaker 1: internal government documents and interviews with twenty sources, and it
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  Speaker 1: paints by far, the clearest picture yet of how the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Murky Green mess came to be. The Time sums it
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  Speaker 1: up like this quote. Documents and interviews established how a
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  Speaker 1: first time contractor was paid millions of dollars to apply
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  Speaker 1: a novel solution designed by a golf club manager to
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  Speaker 1: a national landmark. And if that one sentence doesn't perfectly
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  Speaker 1: capture this president and this, well tell me. What does?
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  Speaker 1: Joining me now? Is New York Times reporter David Farenthal,
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  Speaker 1: who co wrote that piece and who has been all
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  Speaker 1: over this story from the very beginning. So again, some
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  Speaker 1: very very fine reporting, David. Obviously, the Interior Department defended
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  Speaker 1: his handling of this project. What else, what are they
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  Speaker 1: going to do. Uh, but you know, you know the
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  Speaker 1: process you reported on is too crazy for me to
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  Speaker 1: do it justice. So look, dude, I'm going to give
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  Speaker 1: it to you what stood out to you most when
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  Speaker 1: you're reporting this, and just how whack a doodle is it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, so here's the thing. The reflecting pool has the
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  Speaker 2: same problems at the startup Trump's term that it's always had.
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  Speaker 2: It leaks and it's got allergy in the summer, and
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  Speaker 2: the park Service, which oversees it as a plan. All
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  Speaker 2: they need is some money to implement this plan they've
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  Speaker 2: had for long time to fix those things. Instead of
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  Speaker 2: just choosing the plan that they'd spent all these years
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  Speaker 2: working on, they throw it out the window and give
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  Speaker 2: the job to a golf club manager. This guy who
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  Speaker 2: was the head of Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
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  Speaker 2: He doesn't know anything about this. It's not an engineer,
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  Speaker 2: is not an architect. It just meant, you know, he
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  Speaker 2: has a golf club and it has a swimming pool.
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  Speaker 1: But that's it.
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  Speaker 2: So he's the one who designs this planet comes up
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  Speaker 2: with it effort going to a concrete conference in Las
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  Speaker 2: Vegas and walking around and talking to people that's where
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  Speaker 2: this begins.
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  Speaker 1: Oh and it's nothing like the beginning of anything as
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  Speaker 1: silly as this. I mean, growing up in DC, I
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  Speaker 1: connect so well with what you said at the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: There about everybody in this town knows. Okay, is Washington's
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a swamp in the summer is hot? Right? I guess
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen to stagnant water. It's going to
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  Speaker 1: get allergy. But they had a plan, and certainly it
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  Speaker 1: was a crazy one. But here's the thing that was
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  Speaker 1: for me, the favorite part of this was the tariff piece.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me how to hell taris wind up being a
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  Speaker 1: part of this process.
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  Speaker 2: Well, so the golf club manager decides, after talking to
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  Speaker 2: people at the concrete conference, that he wants to spread
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  Speaker 2: a layer of blue polyuria blue plastic across the bottom
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  Speaker 2: of the reflecting pool. That's someone that doesn't need to
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  Speaker 2: be done. The park servers never thought it needed to
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  Speaker 2: be done. It comes out of kind of nowhere, and
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  Speaker 2: so they embark on this plan and then they run
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  Speaker 2: into the tariffs. Which is the problem is that the
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  Speaker 2: tariffs have made the ingredients in this stuff more expensive
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  Speaker 2: and harder to find. So their plan, which is already
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: at the last minute, already on deadline, already expensive, becomes
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  Speaker 2: more of all those things because of the tariffs.
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  Speaker 1: You know, the story is manic and in its stupidity
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  Speaker 1: and ineptitude and just sheer sick of fancy for Trump.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But there's some serious aspects to it as well, and
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  Speaker 1: it involved, of course David Hearn, who was arrested and
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: charged with vandalizing federal property. Talk about that piece of
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  Speaker 1: the story, so folks can really begin to see when
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: you connect those dots, just how messed up this was.
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  Speaker 2: So after they refilled their reflecting pool and said the
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  Speaker 2: project was done, and President Trump said it would last
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  Speaker 2: for one hundred years, it starts peeling up. The blue
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  Speaker 2: stuff on the bottom starts peeling up, and rather than
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  Speaker 2: admit that their renovation had gone bad, Trump blames vandalism.
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  Speaker 2: These shadowy vandals are out there ripping it up. That's
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  Speaker 2: why it's falling apart. And then Jeannine Piro, who is
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  Speaker 2: the US Attorney in Washington, they start charging people with
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  Speaker 2: crimes basically to try to back up that story and
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  Speaker 2: make it seem like, well, Trump was right when he
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  Speaker 2: blamed vandals. So this guy, this US Olympian, is seen
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  Speaker 2: with his hands in the pool. They charge you with
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  Speaker 2: a felony. He could have been ten years in jail
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  Speaker 2: from supposedly vandalizing the pool, all on this service of
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  Speaker 2: sort of propping up this false tale that vandals of
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  Speaker 2: the problem and not the renovation itself.
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  Speaker 1: So we got less than a minute left, but I
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  Speaker 1: want to talk about. You know, the title of your
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  Speaker 1: piece is how the reflecting Pool came to mirror Trump's
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  Speaker 1: Washington talk about how this story has become a reflection
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  Speaker 1: of this administration and this president.
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  Speaker 2: A couple of ways. The first way is just syncofancy.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned it earlier that everybody's a yes man, and
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  Speaker 2: so in this case, this golf club manager comes up
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  Speaker 2: with a plan out of nowhere. It's not a very
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  Speaker 2: good idea. Nobody's able to say no or even to
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  Speaker 2: sort of stop it and ask questions. They just pass
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  Speaker 2: it on and everybody suffers or they all get a
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  Speaker 2: worse plan that embarrasses everyone at the end because no
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  Speaker 2: one could say no in the middle. And then you
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  Speaker 2: also see falsehoods deployed by Trump, by this Interior secretary,
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  Speaker 2: by everybody instead of admitting there's a problem or trying
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  Speaker 2: to have some accountability. It's just lying, basically, saying that
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  Speaker 2: the problem is not my problem, or it's vandals, you know,
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  Speaker 2: doing anything that accepting responsibility for what in the grand
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: scheme of things is a pretty small mistake. They still
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  Speaker 2: just cannot accept responsibility, which is obviously the first step
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  Speaker 2: toward fixing it. So yeah, this is the same dynamics
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  Speaker 2: as Iran and so many other things that are much
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  Speaker 2: bigger and more important.
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  Speaker 1: Well, folks, it's a good read. You got to check
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  Speaker 1: it out. David Farenthal, thank you so much, man, and
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  Speaker 1: really really appreciate the conversation tonight.