Donald Trump spent last night fuming about his botched reflecting pool refurb, beefing with Italy’s PM and posting a picture of a mystery woman on the internet. Here’s everything you need to know
Trump posted a photo that got people very confused(Image: Getty Images)
Donald Trump spent last night fuming about his botched reflecting pool refurb, beefing with Italy’s PM and posting a picture of a mystery woman on the internet.
(Fear not, we’ve solved the mystery, read on for that…)
Trump is at Camp David this weekend, which has left some people in DC a little…nervous. See… as we mentioned yesterday, Trump reportedly hates Camp David, but it’s where Presidents tend to go to plan things. Particularly international things. Now this could all be related to the Iran peace negotiations. That’s certainly what’s being signposted by the White House. But there’s still a not zero chance that it’s something else entirely and that by the time I wake up, he’ll have invaded Cuba.
Anyway…about that mystery woman.
Meanwhile in Trumpworld
- Trump had an absolute meltdown about his botched reflecting pool refurb
- He dispatched the National Guard to..protect the algae or something
- He posted a photo of a mysterious woman
- And then we worked out who…and where…the woman is
- JD Vance has gone to Switzerland after all
- The beef with Giorgia Meloni isn’t going anywhere
Here’s what you need to know
Trump had a meltdown about his botched reflecting pool refurb
We’ve been covering this story since the beginning, so regular readers won’t need catching up.
But in case you’re new here, here’s a condensed version. Trump cancelled a plan to renovate the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, a beloved landmark, and instead got a swimming pool repair firm, which happens to be owned by a Republican donor, to spray industrial pool coating on the bottom instead. In true Trump fashion, the project came in a month late and ten times over budget – costing taxpayers an eye-watering $14 million.
And as soon as they put water back in it, super algae invaded it and turned the water Shrek green. Then the $14 million pool coating started to peel off.
Now we’re all caught up…Trump is not in the least bit happy with this turn of events. But rather than take ownership of the bodge job, which could not be more his fault if he’d picked up a hose and sprayed the coating on himself, he’s blaming it on the radical left.
In an early evening rant, Trump claimed “vandals” had caused one or both of the current issues with the pool – the swampy colour and the peeling. He even claimed someone had brought a blade to the monument, presumably under cover of darkness, and cut a “gash” under the surface that was 250ft long.
I was there on Thursday, when the coating started flapping about in the wind. I saw no evidence that it had been “slashed”.
Anyway, Trump said in his post that the pool will have to be drained, fixed and re-filled. And will I be doing a video for you at every stage? I’ll certainly do my best.
He dispatched the National Guard to …protect the algae or something
In a flurry of Truth Social posts, Trump announced people had been arrested for, I guess, vandalising the pool. Now, this I can actually believe. When I found the bit peeling off on Thursday, I also found a few bits of the surfacing material on the grass nearby. I wasn’t the first to see it – and I imagine a few of the people who got there before me ripped a few pieces off to take home as souvenirs.
But Trump has also apparently dispatched the National Guard to protect the pool…which seems like an overreaction. Not least because the stated reason for the National Guard being deployed to DC is to reduce crime, and there is, statistically speaking, zero crime in that part of the city.
Trump posted a photo of mystery woman on Truth Social
So in the dead of night, Trump posted the following message on Truth Social: “Great daughter. My Honor!!! President DJT”. The message was accompanied by a photo of a woman with blonde hair, wearing a black outfit and sitting on a sofa making a phone call. This puzzled a lot of people, myself included, because…the woman is not one of his daughters. Or granddaughters. It wasn’t one of his wives either. This, of course, sent me and presumably other reporters down a rabbit hole of trying to work out who this woman is, and why Trump was calling her his daughter at 10pm, when she most certainly is not…
We solved the mystery
The woman is, I’m pretty sure, Margo Catsimatidis. And I’m almost certain the photograph was taken at…Camp David, where Trump is right now. The cushions on the sofas match photos taken at Camp David during the George W Bush era, but the large cushion with the Great Seal of the State Of Arkansas suggests the Clinton Administration – so somewhere between 1993 and 2001. If you look closely at the side table, there’s also a “Presidential Call Box” on it – or, as Donald Trump calls it, a Diet Coke button.
(Forgive me a moment of nerding out but – prior to this, the earliest photo of the modern iteration of the call box I was aware of was from during the George W Bush administration. This would seem to suggest it was made much earlier than that. Anyway…)
Margo Catsimtidis and her husband John are retail magnates from New York and are phenomenally wealthy. Like, throw political fundraisers wealthy. Their round robin emails are in the Epstein files. That’s how wealthy they are. They were close to the Clintons, but they’ve mainly been Republicans – and gave more than half a million dollars to Trump’s 2016. It seems likely Trump was pottering about at Camp David and found a picture of an old friend.
But none of this goes any way to explaining why he would describe her as “Great daughter”. That bit remains a mystery.
JD Vance has gone to Switzerland after all
JD Vance has arrived in Switzerland to help formally launch negotiations with Iranian leaders over curbing Tehran’s nuclear program and building out the fragile interim deal to end the war in Iran. The framework was signed last week, and now top US and Iran negotiators are in a 60-day sprint to reach agreement on the technical details that hold massive implications for the world economy and global security.
Yet the first days of that two-month period were complicated by the heavy exchange of fire in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah — and by the subsequent announcement by Iran’s military that it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway that transits a fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas.
Vance had originally been slated to arrive in Switzerland on Friday, but his departure from the United States was delayed after fighting escalated in Lebanon and Iranian officials canceled plans to attend the talks.
Trump says he’ll slap tolls on the Strait if the deal doesn’t get finalised
Earlier on Truth Social, Trump ruled out America charging tolls on the Strait of Hormuz…for now. While he said the US would not charge a fee for ships travelling down the strait during the 60 day negotiation period – he indicated that after that, if a deal is not done, it’s fair game.
He wrote: “There will be NO TOLLS in the Hormuz Strait for 60 days during the Cease Fire Period, and there will be NO TOLLS after the 60 day period has expired, unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America, should the deal not be completed, for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present, and future reimbursement of costs.”
His beef with Giorgia Meloni is going nowhere
Trump deepened his beef with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni yesterday – doubling down on his claim that she “begged” him for a photo op at the G7 – something Meloni says is a lie.
“Italian Prime Minister Gigiorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France,” Trump wrote on his social media platform while spending the weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat. He misspelled her first name in the initial post, which he later corrected.
He continued: “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon (But so did NATO, for that matter!).”
Meloni soon responded, saying in a statement to Trump that “these constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless.”
“As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you. My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s national interest, and that is exactly what I have always done,” Meloni said in a post on Instagram. She added that “in any case, my popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.”
