President Trump was standing in front of the Reflecting Pool on Monday afternoon, doing a little reflecting of his own.
“For some reason,” he was saying, the Washington Monument mirrored in the newly reopened pool behind him, “the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms. But we gave this a very strong shot.”
It was the day before the election, and the president had decided to come here, a place that excites him, to talk about many of the topics that make him happiest. Trouble is, almost none of those topics have anything to do with the issues that are driving this election.
At a time when voters have made clear they’re most concerned with the high prices of gas and groceries and a new war in the Middle East, Mr. Trump used his final in-person appearance before Americans head to the polls to talk about drain pipes, top soil, limestone, fountains and his favorite kind of columns.
“The pipes now are totally renovated,” Mr. Trump said. Propped up next to him was a poster board showing an aerial view of the pool, with this caption: “Back, and more beautiful than ever!”
The “brand-new pipes,” Mr. Trump said, are “very important in terms of the algae and other things. And it’s a complete job, and we’re very proud of it.”
The Lincoln Memorial in front of him, Mr. Trump addressed a small audience seated in folding chairs. There were a few dozen National Park Service employees, reporters, White House officials and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. At one point early in his speech, Mr. Trump beckoned to a young man who bounded up onstage with a stack of large printouts under his arm.
“Great,” Mr. Trump said as he took the stack and began rifling through it. He held up one of the printouts. It was a photograph of what looked like a rusty drainpipe. Another photograph showed a dumpster filled with detritus.
“This is another example of what it looked like just at water level and below,” he explained as he waved another photograph aloft. Every so often, he would look over his shoulder to check on the body of water behind him. “It’s a massive piece of pool,” he said, sounding impressed. It looked clean, dark and choppy on this early November day.
After he finished with the pictures, the president turned to other matters of national interest. Matters including: the nature of Corinthian columns (“the most beautiful in the world”); the soul of grass generally, and Bermuda grass specifically (“like the human being, grass has a life also”); the endurance of granite (“it literally has thousands of years of life”); the renovation of a public golf course on the Potomac that he’s planning; statues; the White House ballroom; graffiti; and the new White House helipad.
“The helipad,” Mr. Trump said, “was desperately needed.”
In the history of American politics, the speech may go down as one of the more unusual closing messages on the eve of an election. But it was a pretty good crystallization of what matters to Mr. Trump as he heads into the lame duck phase of his second term — despite, or maybe because of, his depressed poll numbers and voter unhappiness over the economy, corruption and an unresolved war.
And now here he was, using his final in-person address before the election to talk more about his chryselephantine fantasies of ballrooms and arches and Corinthian columns.
“The president’s a builder,” Mr. Burgum said from the little stage on Monday. “You can’t keep him away!” Large signs that aides had duct-taped to the stage before the president’s arrival read: “RESTORING OUR CAPITAL.”
He made some of his usual comments about the war with Iran, the U.S. economy and various culture war issues, but he did not even attempt to explain how any of the renovation projects that were the focus of the speech related to any of the issues animating the midterm elections.
“I’ve traveled all across the country, spoken at all of these rallies I’ve done over the last two and a half weeks,” he said. “America is ready to go. They’re ready to vote. I hope they’re ready to do the right thing.”
It seemed almost as though he had run out of things to say about politics and governance, and like he simply wanted to talk about what sparks joy for him.
“We have a lot of great things planned for Washington, and I could get into the nation,” Mr. Trump said, “but for that you don’t have enough time.”
The post Trump Delivers a Closing Midterm Message. Mostly About Landscaping. appeared first on New York Times.
