Karoline Leavitt sparks backlash after defending Trump's $14 million Reflecting Pool project

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has faced significant online criticism after dismissing media coverage of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool controversy as the work of a "deranged" liberal press.

The pool has been at the centre of a growing political storm after the Trump administration spent over $14 million in taxpayer funds painting its bottom "American Flag Blue."

The project quickly unravelled when the water turned green, prompting widespread mockery online and a wave of memes that showed little sign of dying down.

In an attempt to address the discolouration, the administration poured hydrogen peroxide into the pool.

The intervention appeared to turn the edges blue while leaving a prominent green strip running down the centre, doing little to quell the ridicule.

The pool has been at the centre of a growing political storm after the Trump administration spent over $14 million in taxpayer funds painting its bottom "American Flag Blue" (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Shortly afterwards, large sections of the painted surface began visibly peeling away from the bottom, further compounding the embarrassment.

President Trump responded by taking to Truth Social on two separate occasions, attributing the damage not to the paint job itself but to deliberate sabotage. He claimed that vandals had used blades to carve a 250-foot gash into the pool's surface and had poured corrosive chemicals into the water, adding that "many" arrests had been made.

The posts were met with widespread scepticism, and protesters subsequently gathered at the site, among them a notable pink frog bearing the label "AMPHIFA," an apparent portmanteau of amphibian and antifa.

Some supporters of the administration suggested the damage had been orchestrated by political opponents, though no credible evidence was presented to support the claim.

It was against this backdrop that Leavitt waded into the debate.

U.S. National Park Service employee uses a vacuum pump to clean algae off the bottom of the newly repainted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall on June 16, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When a Republican user on X complained about the volume of media coverage the story was attracting, the press secretary replied: "So true, and so sad. The liberal media is truly deranged."

The comment drew an immediate and pointed response from critics, many of whom argued that the administration had itself been responsible for elevating the project in the first place.

Trump had promoted the pool renovation extensively in the weeks before its problems became apparent, making it difficult for the White House to now suggest the press had manufactured the story's significance.

"Could it be that people are talking about it because Trump spent weeks and weeks talking about how big this project was?" one user wrote. "Y'all created this news cycle."

Others drew attention to the broader context of the administration's spending priorities, noting that cuts had been made to food assistance programmes on the grounds of affordability, while a multimillion-dollar cosmetic renovation was being defended without apparent reservation.

Several users also surfaced earlier posts in which Leavitt herself had praised the pool project, an irony that landed heavily with her critics and did little to help her position.

The White House and Karoline Leavitt have been approached for comment.