A stunned Kasie Hunt has ripped into Donald Trump’s baffling last-ditch plea to voters.
On Monday’s The Arena, the 41-year-old anchor aired footage of the 80-year-old president’s election-eve speech at the newly reopened Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“This is a massive piece of, piece of... pool,” Trump, 80, said in one of the supercuts aired on CNN, gesturing to the costly refurbished Lincoln pool.
CNN cut back to Hunt, who could not contain her bewilderment.
“A massive, massive piece of pool,” she said, appearing to hold back a laugh.
“Did you catch the midterm message there?” she added, raising her hands.
“Because the president of the United States of America spent the first 22 minutes of his closing speech the day before Election Day talking about a massive piece of pool and grass and pipes and columns.”
Trump was back at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday to declare the renovation done, 203 days after he first vowed to paint the landmark “American Flag Blue.” In front of a handpicked crowd of National Park Service staff and Interior Department officials, he floated slapping his own name on it.
“We are giving serious thought to changing the name to the Trump reflecting pool,” he said, before adding, “I’m only kidding!”
But the president did not stop there.
“Later on in this address, he even talked about his arch and his golf course and his sculpture garden,” noted Hunt.
When he finally got to the midterm vote, he predicted a blowout win for the GOP. But then he hedged.
“If the people that voted for me... go out and vote, just a good portion of them, we will win in a landslide,” he said. “Now that doesn’t happen because usually whoever the sitting president is... the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms, but we gave this a very strong shot.”
Hunt, looking amused, took aim. “Well, there’s the closing message,” Hunt said, looking amused: “We gave it a shot.”
Pointing to the handful of attendees scattered across the memorial’s steps, Hunt said, “Laughing aside, it tells us so much.”
“That’s the size of the event,” she added.
“That’s the size of the event that the president used to try to end his midterm campaign. It’s in front of a pet construction project that, let’s be real, the team he hired botched,” Hunt said. She also pointed out that gas is now above $4 a gallon nationwide. AAA put Monday’s national average at $4.17. The Washington Post noted that’s the highest Election Day average on record.
“Trump was not in a battleground state alongside a Senate candidate. He was not at a big energetic MAGA rally,” she said.
“Instead, it was just a man in there somewhere standing in front of a pool, asking you to love it,” Hunt said, riffing on Julia Roberts’ famous line from Notting Hill.
The pool is just one of Trump’s pet home renovation projects around the capital, alongside his arch, golf course, and sculpture garden.
When he drained the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in April, it came with big promises. He promised to plug the leaks, slap on a fresh coat of “American Flag Blue,” and wrap it up in a few weeks for just under $2 million.
But the big promises turned into an even bigger price tag.
The gig went to a contractor who never had to bid, and the bill swelled to nearly $20 million. The fancy new liner peeled, and the algae came surging back.
Trump blamed so-called “vandals,” going after former Olympian David Hearn.
But the case sank when U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro dropped it, when prosecutors found the contractor’s slapdash rush job, not sabotage, was to blame.
But Trump refuses to let go of the vandal theory.
“The vandals went to work, but we went to work on the vandals,” he told the crowd Monday. “A lot of people tried to protect the vandals—but we got it done.”
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
