President Trump stood in front of the Reflecting Pool Monday afternoon, doing a little thinking himself.
“For whatever reason,” he said, the Washington Monument reflected in the recently reopened swimming pool behind him, “the sitting president doesn’t win the midterm elections. But we gave it a very strong shot.”
It was the day before the election and the president had decided to come here, a place he is passionate about, to talk about many of the topics that make him happiest. The problem is that almost none of these topics have anything to do with the issues driving this election.
At a time when voters have made clear they are more concerned about high gas and food prices and a new war in the Middle East, Mr. Trump used his last in-person appearance before Americans go to the polls to talk about drain pipes, topsoil, limestone, fountains and his favorite columns.
“The pipes are now completely renovated,” Mr. Trump said. Next to him was a billboard showing an aerial view of the pool, with this caption: “Back, and better than ever!”
The “brand new pipes,” Mr. Trump said, are “very important in terms of algae and other things. And it’s a complete job, and we’re very proud of it.”
With the Lincoln Memorial in front of him, Mr. Trump spoke to a small audience seated on folding chairs. There were a few dozen National Park Service employees, journalists, White House officials and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. At the start of his speech, Mr. Trump waved to a young man who bounded onto the stage with a stack of large printouts under his arm.
“Great,” Mr. Trump said as he took the pile and began to rummage through it. He held up one of the printouts. It was a photograph of what looked like a rusty drain pipe. Another photograph showed a dumpster filled with trash.
“This is another example of what it looked like just at the water level and below,” he explained, holding another photo in the air. Every so often he looked over his shoulder to check the body of water behind him. “That’s a huge piece of pool,” he said, sounding impressed. The place looked clean, dark, and bustling on this early November day.
The Reflecting Pool had been closed and fenced since July. After a series of botched repair jobs, it became a symbol of the Trump administration’s dysfunction.
After finishing the photos, the president turned his attention to other matters of national interest. Questions including: the nature of the Corinthian columns (“the most beautiful in the world”); the soul of grass in general, and of Bermuda grass in particular (“like human beings, grass also has a life”); the endurance of granite (“it literally has thousands of years of life”); the renovation of a public golf course on the Potomac that he plans; 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, this speech could be considered one of the most 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 perhaps because of, his depressed poll numbers and voters’ discontent with the economy, corruption and an unresolved war.
And now here he was, using his last in-person speech before the election to talk more about his chryselephantine fantasies of ballrooms and arches and Corinthian columns.
“The president is a builder,” Mr. Burgum said Monday from the small stage. “You can’t keep him away!” Large signs that aides had stuck on the stage before the president’s arrival read: “RESTORE OUR CAPITAL.”
The president made some of his usual comments about the war with Iran, the U.S. economy and various culture war issues, but he didn’t even attempt to explain how the renovation projects that were at the center of the speech related to any of the issues driving the midterm elections.
“I’ve been traveling around the country, speaking at every rally I’ve held over the last two and a half weeks,” he said. “America is ready to go. They are ready to vote. I hope they are ready to do the right thing.”
It was almost as if he had nothing left to say about politics and governance, and just wanted to talk about what made him happy.
“We have a lot of big things planned for Washington, and I could come into the country,” Mr. Trump said, “but you don’t have enough time for that.”
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