Stephen King compared ICE to Nazi Germany's Gestapo and called Trump a "traitorous, Putin-loving" disgrace.
Now he just posted two words about Trump's Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: "very beautiful."
The man who spent years demanding Trump be removed from office just handed the president a testimonial – and the media that spent weeks trashing the renovation has gone very, very quiet.
The Pool That Four Presidents Couldn't Fix
The reflecting pool has been a disaster hiding in plain sight for over a century.
Built in the 1920s on top of drained marshland with no structural support underneath, it was sinking almost from the day it opened.
By the 1980s the system was already failing.
By the time Obama's administration decided to act, the pool was losing as many as 500,000 gallons of water every week.
Obama spent $34 million of your money on a two-year shutdown – and called it a "green project."
Their big fix: swap out city water and pump in water from the Tidal Basin.
https://twitter.com/MarkMeadows/status/2065148369958273277?s=20
It turned green almost immediately.
The algae came back, the leaks came back, and one of America's most iconic landmarks kept rotting.
By the time Trump saw it himself – tipped off by a German friend who called it "disgusting" – the pool was hemorrhaging 45,000 gallons a day.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum put it plainly on Breitbart News Daily: "We had to have water continuously running into it just to keep even."
Trump Did What Obama Could Not
Trump didn't commission another study.
He called in Burgum, told him he wanted it fixed, and they got to work.
The job included draining the pool entirely, sandblasting the basin, repairing every pipe and bubbler, and sealing the expansion joints with materials that Obama's green-energy experiment never bothered to use.
Then they painted the bottom American flag blue.
Cost: approximately $1.5 million for the resurfacing.
Timeline: done before July 4th.
https://twitter.com/nomandatesco/status/2064913230074401089?s=20
Compare that to a two-year shutdown and $34 million with nothing to show for it on the back end.
Burgum called Trump the only president who has ever understood construction at this level.
"He's the only guy that's ever occupied that office that's done the level of complex construction projects," Burgum said.
"And he loves construction workers. He loves construction, and he knows exactly what he's talking about."
The Critics Who Went Silent
While workers were still applying the blue coating, the Washington Post ran an entire article devoted to picking apart the shade.
Their color consultant predicted it would look "very dismal."
The New York Times piled on.
Burgum responded to the Times directly: "The @nytimes has TDS and is ignoring the facts."
Now the pool is finished, the photos are circulating, and ordinary Americans are posting videos with captions like "Thank you, Donald Trump, for helping restore our nation's capital."
The Washington Post color consultant has not issued a follow-up opinion.
Stephen King – who called ICE "the American Gestapo," compared Trump to Putin, and told The Guardian that "Trump is a horror story" – logged on and typed two words.
"Very beautiful."
https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/2064719461635039382?s=20
He couldn't help himself.
The pool looks the way a national landmark is supposed to look – and Trump got it done faster, cheaper, and correctly, where four decades of government management failed.
That is the difference between a builder and a politician.
One of them makes things.
Sources:
- Hannah Knudsen, "Exclusive: Doug Burgum Debunks Leftist Freak-Outs over Reflecting Pool Restoration," Breitbart News, June 3, 2026.
- Simon Kent, "Trump Critic Stephen King Calls Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool 'Very Beautiful,'" Breitbart News, June 11, 2026.
- Jordan Conradson, "Trump and Interior Sec Doug Burgum Nuke the Failing New York Times for Lying About Reflecting Pool Restoration," The Gateway Pundit, May 29, 2026.
- "Thank You President Trump: Reflecting Pool in D.C. Wows After Trump Renovations," Breitbart News, June 8, 2026.
- "Doug Burgum Previews Trump's Reflecting Pool Renovation Plan," The Hill, April 24, 2026.
- Leo Briceno, "Social Media Erupts After Stephen King Makes False Claim About Trump's Family," Fox News Digital, February 2026.