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Trump continues frantically to insist that the problems with the Reflecting Pool are the acts of vandals. As Rachel Kahn of The New Republic reported, Trump insisted on Saturday that the pool had “worked perfectly” before vandals attacked, putting “a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work.” By Monday, the “gash” was 300 feet. By Tuesday it was 350 feet, according to Trump. There is, of course, no evidence of any such sabotage, and there are cameras on the Reflecting Pool.
Trump’s stories have gotten more and more elaborate, about how vandals used “a very sharp knife or razors,” “probably in the dark of night,” then added “chemicals.” He warned there could be a “10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things.” Asked for evidence, he claimed “we have pictures.” He told reporter Ed O’Keefe of CBS News: “[A]t the right time you’ll see it. You’ll see it in court. You’ll see it in court, but all you have to do is call the Parks Department, call the Department of Interior.” Tonight the Interior Department began to place fencing around the Reflecting Pool.
The Reflecting Pool is not the only thing that’s falling apart.
This morning, Trump announced that “Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long in the future (Infinity!!!).... If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations!” Iran disagreed, saying it had made “no new commitments” on nuclear inspections although it would continue to work with the IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, as it has for years under a system less stringent than the one that operated under the JCPOA.
Today, after a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that only 23% of Americans thought the Iran war had made the U.S. stronger, the Senate passed a war powers resolution requiring Trump to get congressional approval to continue military actions against Iran. Four Republicans joined all Democrats but one to pass the measure. The House passed the measure earlier this month. It is unclear if Trump will honor the resolution, but its passage shows growing discontent with the president.
“Trump’s historic blunder in Iran will go down in the history books as one of the worst foreign policy forays America has ever made, or any country has ever made,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said today. “The American people have seen skyrocketing gas prices, soaring costs, and, tragically, the loss of 13 service members, and the wounding of hundreds more, and meanwhile, Iran took Trump to the cleaners.”
Holly Baxter of The Independent noted that when Trump is stressed out, he throws a campaign-style rally in front of a friendly crowd. Today, after a poll from the American Research Group showed that 66% of Americans disapprove of his job performance while only 30% approve, he went to a factory in Pennsylvania to bolster his confidence. He did his usual greatest hits, claiming he won by a landslide in 2024 and calling Democrats communists. He even made it clearer than ever that he thought people applying for political asylum in the United States had been released from “mental institutions.” He flitted from subject to subject and after an hour and a half, audience enthusiasm seemed under control.
William Kristol of The Bulwark noted today that a “sense of impending mortality seems to be making our president even more unhinged than ever.” But, Kristol noted, there are “young men with a lean and hungry look in positions of authority and power in the executive branch who are committed to making his dream of power without limits a reality.”
Those lean and hungry men include Bill Pulte, now acting director of national intelligence, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, FBI director Kash Patel, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, and acting attorney general Todd Blanche.
And, of course, Vice President J.D. Vance, who is next in line should Trump become unable to perform the duties of the office of the presidency.
As Trump crumbles, it appears there is in the administration a drive to create unlimited power in the executive branch that will survive no matter who is in charge. That drive includes silencing political opponents while rewarding loyalists.
Last September, Trump announced he would designate “antifa”—a word that is short for “antifascists”—as a “MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” calling it a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER.” On September 22 he did so, claiming that protesters standing against administration policies are trying to “overthrow…the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.” They are, the executive order said, working in coordination to riot, assault ICE agents and other law enforcement officers, and to dox “political figures and activists.”
Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center notes that even if antifa were a real group—which both Trump-appointed FBI director Chris Wray and the Congressional Research Office have denied—Trump has authority only to designate foreign terrorist organizations. Patel writes that he “has no authority to designate groups as domestic terrorist organizations, as is obvious from the failure to cite any statute or constitutional provision in support of the president’s action. There is none, and the purported designation has no legal effect.” Patel notes that the ability to formally assign the label of terrorists to political opponents would enable it to crush political opposition.
Nonetheless, three days later, Trump issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7), titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” that called for a National Joint Terrorism Task Force to investigate Americans engaging in protest and ordered the attorney general to prosecute protest as a federal crime to the maximum extent permissible by law.
After a protest against ICE at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, last July 4 led to a protester shooting a police officer in the shoulder, the government prosecuted nine of the protesters, some of whom did not know each other and one of whom was not at the protest, as part of an antifa cell engaging in terrorism. In March all nine were found guilty in what observers saw as a test of the administration’s power to use broad antiterrorism laws to prosecute protesters.
Today, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor sentenced eight of the Prairieland protesters to between thirty and one hundred years in prison.
In contrast, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes were sentenced to 22 years and 18 years in prison, respectively, for their roles in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that was intended to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and make Donald Trump president. When he took office in 2025, Trump pardoned Tarrio and commuted Rhodes’s sentence to time served, releasing both men from prison.
Notes:
https://newrepublic.com/post/212233/size-gash-reflecting-pool-keeps-changing-told-trump
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/reflecting-pool-paint-peeling-trump-proof-vandalism-court/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/13/texas-terrorism-trial
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/03/15/trump-el-salvador-cecot-deportations/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/13/ice-agent-court-testimony-oregon
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/23/politics/trump-iran-claims-nuclear-inspectors
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5937328-lincoln-memorial-vandalism-fencing/