Author Stephen King isn't buying President Trump's story about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Over the weekend, Trump took to Truth Social to blame "Radical Left Lunatics" for vandalizing the iconic pool, but King fired back on X, calling the whole thing a "visible example of his corruption."
"Nobody is vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, and Trump knows it," King wrote on Sunday. He went on to accuse the president of orchestrating a classic grift: "a no-bid contract to some crony followed by sky-high cost overruns, and shoddy construction to boot."
King's comments came after a 67-year-old former Olympic canoe slalom competitor, Richard Hearn, was arrested Friday by U.S. Park Police and charged with misdemeanor destruction of government property. According to The Washington Post, Hearn had stopped at the pool after a 52-mile bike ride and noticed a section of the newly installed blue liner had come loose. He says he reached into the water and touched the partially detached material but didn't remove or damage it.
"I didn't vandalize anything," Hearn told reporters on Saturday. "I didn't destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs." He also disputed social media claims that he interfered with workers cleaning algae from the pool. "I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece," he said. "It was still attached to the bottom. I didn't remove anything."
Video of the arrest posted online shows Hearn in handcuffs, though it doesn't clearly capture what led to his detention. The incident has become a flashpoint in the broader debate over the Trump administration's handling of the Reflecting Pool renovation—a $14.7 million project that has already hit trouble, with reports of peeling paint and algae-tinted water.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) also weighed in, summing up the situation with a tweet: "Found an imaginary problem, said only they could fix it, didn't listen to experts, hired buddies who grifted millions, failed miserably, bragged how great it went. The entire Trump presidency in a nutshell."
Trump, meanwhile, posted on Truth Social hours after the arrest, blaming "Radical Left Lunatics" for what he described as vandalism and promising that repairs would be completed quickly. The post included an image of the pool, but the administration has not provided evidence of vandalism beyond Hearn's arrest.
The episode has reignited criticism of the Trump administration's contracting practices, with King and others pointing to the no-bid contract and cost overruns as a pattern of corruption. For now, the Reflecting Pool remains a symbol of political division—and a cautionary tale about what happens when you mix politics with construction.
