It’s Monday…
Shitshow’s public schedule for…
Correction: Apparently I was so eager to get to Tuesday that I used Tuesday’s White House schedule in Monday’s Coffee Talk. That’s on me. The schedule has been corrected and my calendar privileges are under review.
Now, I know we should talk about Iran.
But after several days of discussing a memo of understanding that we haven’t seen, might never see, and apparently may eventually be read aloud by Puddle himself, I’d rather start with something a little more concrete.
Yesterday, Puddle shared a Breitbart article celebrating the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. According to the article, the renovation is “wowing skeptics” after months of criticism.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature appears to have skipped the press release.
Took a 20 mile bike ride this morning to check out the Reflecting Pool pic.twitter.com/LmBWBEDqNQ
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) June 15, 2026
This morning:
The note tells the user that peroxide is legal to use and this is just routine maintenance. 🙄
It turns out algae doesn’t care who paid for the renovation, who cut the ribbon, or how many victory laps were taken on Lies Social.
Nature remains undefeated.
Unfortunately, taxpayers don’t have the same winning record.
As many people suspected from the moment it was announced, taxpayers appear to be paying for at least part of it after all.
According to documents obtained by the Washington Post, taxpayers could be on the hook for more than half the cost.
Exclusive: A detailed project summary of the ballroom prepared for the White House by a contractor estimated the total construction cost at $600 million — with more than half coming from taxpayers, according to a copy obtained by The Post. https://t.co/gHM0D7BmOg
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 16, 2026
Five months after the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, President Donald Trump claimed that the project to construct a massive ballroom and a bunker in its place would cost up to $400 million and that private donors would pay for all of it.
“This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on March 31, describing the project as including bomb shelters and major medical facilities.
But a detailed project summary prepared for the White House by the contractor more than three weeks before Trump’s comments estimated the total construction cost at $600 million — with more than half coming from taxpayers, according to a copy of the contractor estimate obtained by The Washington Post.
By the time Trump made his comments in March, the federal government had already approved more than a dozen payments to the contractor overseeing the work, Clark Construction, totaling tens of millions of dollars in public funds, according to a log of the contractor’s invoices obtained by The Post.
[snip]
A spokesperson for McLean, Virginia-based Clark Construction said all project details are confidential and referred questions to the White House.
The Post obtained six cost estimates for the entire East Wing project, dated from July 2025 to March of this year, that show an increasing price tag as well as the expected sources of funding. Those records, as well as invoice logs and correspondence, provide the clearest accounting yet of Trump’s most ambitious construction project in the nation’s capital. The project is deeply unpopular with most Americans, and even some Republican lawmakers have balked at funding it.
[snip]
The records obtained by The Post show that the administration and Clark worked hand in hand starting last June to determine the scope and cost of construction.
White House officials received a preliminary estimate, dated July 11, projecting that construction would cost $270 million, with over $100 million coming from taxpayers throughthe Secret Service and the White House Military Office, the records show.
Emails from that time show that administration officials planned to use $3.6 million of Secret Service money to cover initial expenses for site preparation before demolition.
A White House lawyer explained in an email to colleagues on July 30 that she had added a line to contract language “to tie the project more closely to security-related issues since USSS [U.S. Secret Service] is providing the funding.”
“We believe this edit is important to comply with fiscal law principles,” wrote Caroline C. Hunter, general counsel in the White House Office of Administration. Hunter did not respond to messages seeking comment.
More than $1.6 million in Secret Service funds was also budgeted to cover part of the demolition itself, according to a cost estimate. The U.S. Secret Service did not provide answers to questions before publication of this report.
Washington Post (gift link). 06/16/2026.
It’s almost comforting.
No matter how much changes in Washington, one tradition remains sacred: somebody announces a flashy project, promises someone else will pay for it, and eventually taxpayers discover they were the someone else.
This is an Open Thread
