President Donald Trump is preparing to sue ABC News for a second time. His latest grievance involves the network’s reporting on repair costs at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The previous lawsuit was a defamation case, which Trump won.
Donald Trump threatens ABC with lawsuit over reflecting pool coverage
Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday to accuse the broadcaster of distorting the facts about who spent what on the iconic Washington monument. He directed particular anger at what he described as a failure to hold previous Democratic administrations to account.
Trump alleged that ABC ignored spending by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He claimed they “spent over 100 Million Dollars on the Reflecting Pool, and it never worked.” However, Trump provided no supporting evidence for the numbers. A PBS investigation previously estimated Obama-era repair costs at around $35 million, while no significant pool refurbishments are known to have occurred under Biden.
The dispute was triggered by ABC publishing details of a federal contract awarded without competitive tender. The network revealed that repainting the reflecting pool had driven its price tag to $14.65 million, overshooting the original estimate by more than $4 million. The network also mentioned a separate $1.74 million no-bid deal awarded to Green Water Solutions, a company based in Ohio, to install equipment that kills algae using nanobubble technology. Both contracts pushed total project costs past $16 million.
However, Trump offered a different explanation for the condition of the reflecting pool. Speaking to reporters, he described a “350-foot slit” cut with a “box-cutter or a knife of some kind” and blamed deliberate vandalism. The White House has yet to release any evidence confirming the damage was intentional.
The president signaled he is ready to repeat a strategy that proved lucrative before. “We are preparing lawsuits against ABC for false reporting. I like their money, which will be given to the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote. His post referenced the $16 million settlement ABC agreed to pay in 2024 to resolve a previous defamation claim.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu for Mandatory.
