Control of Congress Is on the Line. Time for Trump to … Talk a Lot About Plumbing?

Politics The head of the Republican Party has made his top priority clear. By Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Molly Olmstead? Nov 02, 20264:53 PM Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Stay in the loop on the midterms without spiraling. Every weekday evening, The Slatest explains the day’s biggest news, then points you to the best of the internet so you can log off. Sign up for The Slatest here. We are now hours away from the midterm elections in which President Donald Trump’s party is facing the prospect of historic losses. And on Monday afternoon, in what was expected to be his final pitch to voters, Donald Trump stood before a lectern on the National Mall and addressed what he clearly considered the most pressing matter of the day: the plumbing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. This is, word for word, how he began his speech: Very special place, the Lincoln Memorial. Behind us—it’s been something that, uh, for a long time, generations, they’ve looked at what’s behind me. From 1922. And believe it or not, it’s never worked. And it’s never worked because it’s always loaded up with leaks and problems. But today I’m thrilled to announce the official opening of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool. This was not a light anecdote before moving onto more substantive matters. The entire speech was less than an hour long, and Trump didn’t mention policy matters until 17 minutes into his speech. Up until that point, his topics included the corrosion of the pool’s pipes, the “beautiful” color of blue chosen for the lining, the pool’s architectural history, algae blooms, and the timing of the pool’s closures. He pulled out blown-up photos of the pipes to illustrate age-related damage. He held up a photo of trashed expansion joints, which he called “defective” and blamed on Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He shared photos of algae to show where previous administrations had failed to properly care for the water. “This is a massive piece of pool,” he said, of the Reflecting Pool. “There’s never been anything like it. It’s the biggest anywhere in the world by far. It’s been treated with a lot of love. And it was treated with a lot of hate. And we’re going to stop the hate.” If you were a Republican in a tight race hoping for a last-minute campaign boost from the president, this was perhaps not an ideal way for this speech to go. (If you were the owner of a pool-supply business, this may have been more compelling.) It seemed as if the president had perhaps forgotten that the fate of Congress would be decided the next day. It seemed as if the president had perhaps forgotten that voters are concerned more about their ability to afford groceries than they are about the shade of blue of the Reflecting Pool. It seemed as if he had perhaps forgotten that he was the president of the United States. When he finally turned to politics, he moved through his pitch with a rapid-fire list of accomplishments. His administration got drugs off the streets, put away criminals, built factories, made our economy boom like never before. The sigh of relief from GOP staffers and campaign consultants was almost audible. But it was a fake out. He swung right back to talk of the statues in D.C. They had taken care of the graffiti, he said. The new helipad was getting “rave reviews.” They were replacing all the grass. Did you know the grass in D.C. needs to be replaced less often than grass in Florida? Anyone who watched this speech now does. “If you get caught putting graffiti on any of our Corinthian marbles—so many of our buildings are Corinthian. The Corinthian columns are the most beautiful in the world. If you get caught doing it, you’re going to serve a long time in prison,” he said. Then, with no pause: “As you know it’s the last day before the midterm elections.” This was the first mention of the election. It was 23 minutes into the speech. Already at this point, he had bragged about the renewal of several parks in the city that most visitors have never heard of. Meridian Hill Park? That’s a local picnic spot. I’m sure it’s nice that it will have less graffiti. Relatedly: Does Trump know that D.C. has no voting member in Congress and that there’s no competitive federal election in the district? But to his credit (credit?), Trump did in the latter half of the speech hit some Republican talking points. He accused Abdul El-Sayed of being a jihadist and claimed that Democrats wanted to mutilate children. He described the “dumbocratic party” as the “party of hate.” He said that if you “add our conquest in Venezuela,” the U.S. has half of the world’s oil. That we’re “making a fortune,” that the energy situation was exceptional, that “we’re in first place.” Unfortunately for Republican candidates, this talk didn’t last. Trump returned to the building projects. He finished the speech out with talk of his triumphal arch. Now, he said, the country is in a beautiful place. There’s one way to view this bizarrely frivolous speech that interprets it as, essentially, giving up. Trump himself seemed to nod to the political reality, noting that “for some reason the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” regardless of whether the president is “good or bad.” If people voted for congressional representation like they voted for him, he said, Republicans would win. “But we gave this a good shot,” he said. But there’s another way to view it that may more accurately reflect Trump’s psyche. Trump’s final message to voters may, in the end, be simply a reflection of what his passions are, at this stage in his life. And those passions clearly do not include helping elect Republicans to Congress. Donald Trump Republicans District of Columbia 2026 Midterms