Is Trump's motorcade responsible for Reflecting Pool damage he's blaming on vandals?

President Donald Trump's claim that vandals damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool—causing the blue liner to peel and algae to bloom, turning the water green—has come under heavy scrutiny after photos of the newly drained pool began circulating online. Upon seeing what appeared to be parallel marks across some sections of the floor, users speculated that Trump's motorcade may have caused the damage after driving over the pool in May as part of an inspection.

It's still not confirmed what caused the scuff marks or whether they're actually tire tracks, but online sleuths seem to have made up their minds. One of them, who goes by John Bourscheid, contended that the pool showed no cuts, only marks. "...obvious damage from Trump's vanity drive in a fleet of 10-ton vehicles for no reason at all. He ruined his own project, then lied and blamed the citizens who paid for it," he wrote on X.

Experts cautioned that it may not be possible to identify the features as tire tracks or ascertain their significance from photos alone, with one expert telling Newsweek there isn't enough evidence to conclude that vehicle traffic caused the pool's problems. He recommended a more thorough forensic analysis, the outlet added, while noting that a White House spokesperson had earlier rejected charges of damage from the cavalcade in a statement.

The pool was drained again for repairs, and no gash was visible in the newly emerged footage, despite Trump's repeated assertions, which have shifted from 250 feet to 300 yards in his latest post on Truth Social. "We drained the beautiful "Reflecting Pool" today in order to fix the scars and damage that were done by the Vandals two weeks ago," he wrote on Monday. Many experts argue that the real cause is poor-quality work by contractors selected under questionable circumstances. 

The 80-year-old added: "We wanted to wait until after the July 4th Weekend. The slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs. The Parks Department had to empty the water in order to fix the watertight basin. It will be refilled and put back into service soon. These country-hating sleazebags should pay a big price for the damage done."

In a separate post, Trump went after "ABC Fake News" and its anchor, David Muir, arguing that the network had wrongly attributed the draining to peeling paint. "(There is no paint, it was slashed with a knife, or box cutter, high grade colored waterproofing liner—it was VANDALISM!) and Algae Blooms (also caused by Vandals, but removed long ago!). In other words, the story was FAKE NEWS, but heavily slanted away from the real cause of the problem, Vandalism." he wrote, informing that the problem will be fixed soon.