Doug Burgum’s Reflecting Pool Fiasco Raises Serious Questions About His Future
Interior Secretary Spent $14 Million in Taxpayer Money For a Nasty Swamp
HELENA, MT – Doug Burgum had one job, and he couldn’t deliver. Just days after Interior spent $14.7 million in public funds repainting the Reflecting Pool “American Flag Blue,” it turned green with algae. Now, the no-bid contract Burgum awarded for the purported paint job has failed and is peeling up as workers scramble to clean up Trump’s reflecting pool swamp.
The debacle is the latest in a cascading series of failures from a secretary who has raided at least $90 million in national park entrance fees for Trump’s D.C. vanity projects, overseen a $600 million taxpayer-backed ballroom, and pushed for an “Arc de Trump” that would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial, all while the parks maintenance backlog sits at over $24 billion. At some point, Trump has to wonder whether his Interior Secretary is up to the job. Burgum reposted an inaccurate Interior Department social media post in a desperate attempt at damage control, but after Trump trumpeted the reflecting pool boondoggle for weeks, this failure is likely to catch his boss’ ire.
“Doug Burgum diverted nearly $100 million from the national parks Americans love to fund Trump’s ego, and he can’t even manage to do that right,” said Jayson O’Neill, Save Our Parks spokesperson. “Burgum should be managing our national treasures, not running a vanity operation for Trump, who sees D.C. as his personal kingdom. How many more Burgum blunders will Trump tolerate before he pulls the plug and lets this failed pool boy go?”
Additional Resources:
Doug Burgum Is Letting National Parks Fail As America’s 250th Birthday Approaches
Doug Burgum Raids National Park Fees for Donald Trump’s Political Events and Vanity Projects
To speak with Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O’Neill, email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com.
###
