Podbit · The MeidasTouch Podcast
George Stephanopoulos cornered Burgum with one simple question: if the reflecting pool renovation was a huge success, why is it being drained? Burgum's answer — that 99.99% was perfect but 350 feet were cut — only highlighted the absurdity of the administration's spin.
Where this was said
At 16:15 · chapter starts 13:20
The scene: Dana Bash patiently pressing a visibly uncomfortable Doug Burgum on one of the July 4th event's most embarrassing aftermaths — a 350-foot gash in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool liner. Burgum's position is firm: an industrial liner of this quality simply cannot peel on its own; it must have been cut. Box cutters. Seven arrests. But Bash has a follow-up: do you have photographs of someone actually cutting a gash that long? Burgum pivots to the quality of the liner material, the size of the pool (8 football fields, 8 acres), and the logic that only a physical cut could produce a localized gash. He also pivots to offense — the real scandal, he insists, is how neglected the capital's infrastructure had become before Trump. The pool, he notes, had been leaking 45,000 gallons a day before the administration fixed it. Meiselas watches all of this unfold and delivers a simple verdict: pathetic.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum insisted a 350-foot gash in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool liner was cut by vandals with box cutters — but admitted there was no video proof. Meanwhile, the same administration claimed 99.99% of the pool bottom was perfect.
Interior Secretary Burgum claimed 7 arrests had been made in connection with alleged vandalism to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
A 350-foot gash was found in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool liner, which the Trump administration blamed on vandals.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool liner covers the equivalent of 8 football fields (8 acres), making the claimed 350-foot vandalism a tiny fraction of the total.
Burgum claimed the reflecting pool had been leaking 45,000 gallons a day before Trump's administration fixed it.
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Joe Rogan and Andrew Wilson watch a bystander video of the Corey Ruiz police shooting in Madison, Wisconsin live on air. The video is so blurry they initially think a female officer fired the fatal shots. They later learn a male officer did, after Ruiz allegedly pulled a knife and stabbed officers. Their conclusion: you cannot have a hot take on a story you don't understand yet.
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