Interior Secretary Doug Burgum clashed with CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday over damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., saying officials can prove vandals cut the newly installed liner after she questioned whether the Trump administration’s renovation work had failed ahead of the Fourth of July celebration.Bash asked Burgum whether he was "100% sure" vandalism caused the damage and whether he could prove it."Absolutely you can," Burgum said."And as we drain it, we’ve got all the photographs we can see."Interior Secretary Doug Burgum clashed with CNN’s Dana Bash after she questioned whether vandalism caused damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
(Getty Images)FORMER US OLYMPIAN DAVID HEARN INDICTED IN ALLEGED REFLECTING POOL VANDALISMBash pressed Burgum on whether officials had photographs of "a person or people cutting a 300 or 350 ft gash" in the bottom of the pool."Dana, I’m not sure why you and others in the media think that you want to keep trying to question… this is an industrial liner," Burgum said.Burgum said the material installed in the pool was not paint, comparing it to the sprayed-on liner used in pickup truck beds."Every farmer and rancher in America that’s had their pickup liner lined by this sprayed-on liner knows that you literally, literally, it would never just like peel off or fall off," Burgum said."This is like a strong material, and it’s the size of eight football fields."Burgum said officials can prove the Reflecting Pool’s new blue industrial liner was physically cut and did not simply peel off.
(U.S.Park Police)TRUMP ANNOUNCES MAJOR NEW LANDMARK PROJECT IN DC'S WEST POTOMAC PARK HONORING AMERICA'S GREATEST HEROESBurgum said the pattern of the damage showed it had been deliberately cut."The only way you can end up with actual slices in one spot and not the other is that someone physically cut it," Burgum said.The secretary said the pool itself had been fixed after leaking tens of thousands o...