Joe Kovacs used WorldNetDaily articles to promote President Trump’s narrative on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. First were the memes; Kovacs gushed in a May 3 article:
While President Donald Trump continues his efforts to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the commander in chief this weekend posted a shirtless, A.I.-generated image of himself and a few of his Cabinet members lounging in the historic water.
“The GOAT of trolls!” said best-selling author Buzz Patterson, the former carrier of America’s nuclear football, with GOAT standing for the Greatest Of All Time.
Besides Trump, obvious Cabinet members featured wading include Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. An unidentified woman sporting sunglasses bears some resemblance to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Trump ordered the accelerated beautification of the pool, with $1.5 million being spent to to fix leaks in the aging granite foundation by applying a new “American flag blue” industrial-grade coating.
He also shared an image of what the pool looked like during the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, compared to how it will appear during his own term.
Kovacs did not explain why he used Obama’s middle name when he did not use Trump’s.
Kovacs peddled another Trump-generated meme in a May 12 article:
President Donald Trump on Tuesday posted an A.I.-generated image of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi swimming in sewage in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as he erupted with anger against the New York Times for pointing out his renovations to the site will cost more than the original estimate.
“Dumacrats Love Sewage,” was the caption.
The image was posted as Trump flayed the New York Times for reporting Monday the cost of improvements to the iconic location in Washington, D.C., will be $13.1 million. The president’s original estimate for the project was just $1.8 million.
In his lengthy attack on the paper, Trump wrote: “They are now trying to justify Obama and Biden’s expensively botched attempt at fixing the long broken, unsightly, and unsanitary Reflecting Pool that NOW sits majestically between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.
Neither Trump nor Kovacs offered evidence there was ever sewage in the Reflecting Pool.
WND also posted a video of Trump claiming that presidents Obama and Biden spent “over $142 million” on Reflecting Pool repairs — a number that turns out to have been wildly overexaggerrated.
Bob Unruh picked up the Trump-fluffing baton for a June 5 article:
One of President Donald Trump’s Washington fix-it projects from his construction management desk in the White House has been the cleanup, fix-up and refilling of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.
It’s just about done now, with the refilling process under way and expected to be completed in a few days.
And even Democrats are admitting it’s great.
“I thought it was a stupid idea to paint the Reflecting Pool, but it looks really good. It makes the reflection look extraordinarily prominent in a way it did not before, and I hate that,” one Democrat admitted on video.
Unruh weirdly did not name the Democrat in question or where that video he cites came from — which turns out to be a fellow right-wing “news” source, the Right Angle News Network. But then, Unruh was in full Trump-fluffing mode:
The Hill reported the work was much more than just a “paint job,” as critics have claimed.
Trump pointed out that was the Washington Post’s “malicious” description.
“This was not a paint job. This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years, applied by very talented people, many of whom came from the Great State of Oklahoma, where I won 77 out of 77 Counties, THREE TIMES, the only President to ever do so,” Trump said. “The material is thick, strong, flexible, and has a natural, beautiful color, the dark blue of the American Flag!”
When problems quickly arose, however, WND was in stenographer mode to help Trump assign blame. An anonymously written June 20 article stated:
President Donald Trump is charging that vandalism is responsible for at least some of the issues that have developed at the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington, which was recently drained, repainted and refilled.
The results of Trump’s repair order had even Democrats confirming it was good after completion but now there have developed issues including damage to the new liner, algae and others.
Kovacs followed with more stenography two days later:
With numerous arrests made in connection with vandalism to the newly renovated Lincoln Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump on Monday reminded Americans there is a 10-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of doing the damage.
“Of the MANY Statues and Fountains that we rebuilt, renovated, cleaned, and fixed, the only one that was Vandalized was the Reflecting Pool, which is being taken care of, ASAP!” Trump exclaimed on Truth Social.
“It has been given a 300 foot long gash, chemicals have been illegally placed in the water, and the beautiful new grass field has been destroyed with a gigantic 86 47 chemically carved into it (Probably inspired by Dirty Cop, James Comey!).
“Please remember that there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Neither Kovacs nor Trump offered any actual evidence that Reflecting Pool problems were caused by vandalism.
Unruh returrned for a July 2 article hyping the arrest of a former Olympian on charges of vandalism:”
A former U.S. Olympic team member, canoeist David “Davey” Hearn, has been indicted on a felony charge of damaging federal property after he admitted he stopped at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington during a bike ride and “touched” a loose piece of blue coating installed during President Donald Trump’s repair project.
A Fox News report said the charge is felony destruction of property.
The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Hearn rejected claims he damaged anything at the pool, saying he only touched the coating “to satisfy my curiosity as a citizen.”
The charge follows several other people who have been arrested or cited for damage to the pool following the $14 million repair work.
Again, no evidence was provided to back up the charges against Hearn — unsurprising given that a judge dropped charges against him and three others similarly accused.
This was apparently the final original WND article on the Reflecting Pool to date, though it did published a right-wing Daily Caller article featuring Trump demanding reinstatement of the charges.