Trump Unveils His Latest Unfinished Gaudy Vanity Project

Donald Trump has unveiled his latest gold-covered vanity project—and just like the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, it’s over budget and over deadline.

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As taxpayers reel over the botched Reflecting Pool revamp, the administration has unveiled a new multimillion-dollar gilded sculpture a few hundred feet away.

The statues, created by sculptor Leo Friedlander, were initially bronze, but the president wanted them painted in 24-karat gold in time for the America 250 birthday bash.

However, like the Reflecting Pool and the White House ballroom, the project also involved a no-bid contract, with the cost now ballooning from an initial $2.5 million to an estimated $5 million.

The administration awarded the work to Maryland firm The Gilders’ Studio and Trump promised in a Truth Social post in June that the statues would be “fully re-gilded” by July 3.

“The Gilders’ Studio has flown in Gilders from around the Country to perform this work!” he boasted at the time.

But only this week have crews finally begun removing the scaffolding that concealed the statues during months of restoration work—and the project still isn’t complete.

The Daily Beast visited the site on Thursday morning to find one statue is fully uncovered while the other three in the series, which symbolize America’s journey from war to peace, remain partly or fully covered.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the historic Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool has been concealed even more as crews carry out additional repairs after Trump’s multi-million-dollar overhaul failed to resolve persistent problems including leaks, algae growth and damage to the pool’s liner.

While wire fencing was erected around the pool several weeks ago, it is now covered in dark meshing.

Additional CCTV security cameras have been installed across the Mall, and National Guards—who will now remain deployed in Washington through Inauguration Day 2029—continue to patrol the area in groups.

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A new temporary memorial honoring military service members also opened this week between the Lincoln Memorial steps and the Reflecting Pool to commemorate America’s 250th birthday.

On Thursday, the reflecting pool was still completely drained, and National Park Service officials were unable to tell the Daily Beast when it was likely to be filled again, or open to the public.

But a gap in the fencing showed it appeared to have been spruced up to highlight Trump’s much-touted “American flag blue” paint job.

Trump insists the damage was the work of vandals who sliced a 250 to 350-foot gash in the pool with “a box cutter or a knife of some kind.”

“They’re sick people, so I think they’re in big trouble,” he told reporters last month as he vowed to jail people for up to 10 years if they were caught damaging the site.

But critics point to the dubious way in which contracts for his vanity projects are often awarded, which they claim lead to poor results and inflated costs for taxpayers.

At a Democrat-led hearing on Capitol Hill this month, for example, Jon Golinger, a former attorney who now works with the progressive consumer group Public Citizen, outlined a web of “shady schemes” that allows billionaire donors to secretly bankroll the president’s pet projects while he steers lucrative contracts to political allies.

“The template for these projects is the same: hijack a legitimate group, funnel money from donors who want or have gotten something from the government, and allow them to be both tax-exempt and secret,” he testified under oath.

“Then steer the money to Donald Trump’s piggy bank so he can dole the contracts out to friends, no-bid contracts in many or most cases, and spend wild sums to build monuments to waste, greed, and corruption.”

In response, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast: “Democrats are opposed to anything that President Trump does because they are America Last losers.”