It’s worth spending some time on the Reflecting Pool this week as a microcosm of Donald Trump’s two presidencies. 

On July 21, 2016, Trump addressed a Republican National Convention that remained uneasy about his candidacy. He stood at the lectern in Cleveland and delivered what became one of the defining lines of his political career: “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” 

And when Trump swept into the White House, we quickly learned what he meant. 

He elevated problems – often of his own creation – only to swoop in with a dramatic rescue, or pillory those who stood in his way. 

After his administration separated immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump bragged of new efforts to keep those families together. When his tariffs triggered foreign retaliation against American agriculture producers, he created a bailout fund to offset the damage. Trump, without evidence, sowed doubt about U.S. elections, then cast himself as the champion of “voter integrity.” 

This uniquely Trumpian playbook has been overwhelmingly present in recent months – including at the Reflecting Pool. 

The president ordered a renovation of the monument that turned out to be, well, problematic. The pool’s “American flag blue” paint is peeling. A massive algae bloom has suffocated the water. Dead ducklings are floating around.  

Trump has, without citing evidence, claimed vandals snuck into the highly patrolled property in the middle of the nation’s capital and sliced 350 feet of the pool’s sealant with a knife or razor blade. The pool must now be drained, Trump said, and patches applied.  

“I spent approximately 16 Million Dollars, and it came out great, except for the Vandalism, which we are now fixing,” he posted on social media. 

Trump is once again positioning himself as the solution after creating the problem. 

Reporting suggests that the issues stem from problems with the renovation itself, not from vandalism.    

Either way, Trump now gets to play the fixer. 

It illustrates a central feature of Trump's politics. Success is often measured less by whether a problem was prevented than by whether he can be seen responding forcefully once it exists – no matter the instigator. 

On Thursday, Trump asked Congress for $87.6 billion to replenish munition stockpiles and respond to the Ebola outbreak in Africa.  

The request underscores the same pattern: the Iran war depleted munitions to critical levels, while the U.S. needs additional resources for Ebola aid after Trump’s cuts to diplomatic and public-health programs weakened the government's ability to respond to crises. 

To resolve the Iran war that he started, Trump initially declared he would need the Islamic Republic’s “unconditional surrender.” Now, to merely begin negotiations for a permanent peace, the U.S. has agreed to release tens of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and greenlight $300 billion in reconstruction payments for the Islamic Republic. 

In exchange, the U.S. and Iran largely returned to status quo ante: the Strait of Hormuz open, Iran with a cache of nuclear material and ballistic missile capacity, the Islamic Republic’s government still able to fund militant proxies in the region. 

Trump began the war promising a decisive outcome. But the fragile and provisional peace terms have achieved rather little despite substantial military and economic costs. Trump had for years insisted that only he – among world leaders and former U.S. presidents – could reach a lasting deal with Iran. 

The Senate on Tuesday passed bipartisan legislation instructing Trump to end hostilities in Iran, a stinging rebuke of the president. (Senate Republicans reversed themselves on Wednesday night, blocking a separate measure calling for the war’s end.) 

Trump responded on social media to the first vote by accusing lawmakers of his party of trying to “aid and comfort the Enemy,” and added, “These Senators have just made my job more difficult, but I will get it done, one way or the other, because I always get it done!” 

And that’s precisely the point: Create the crisis. Command the fix. Repeat.  

Follow Reuters/Ipsos polling on the president's approval ratings here.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week vowed that the U.S. would not do anything that would undermine the security of U.S. allies in the Gulf ‌region when it comes to Washington's dealings with Iran. Our colleague Gram Slattery was traveling with Rubio on the secretary’s diplomatic mission to the Gulf. "We're going to be completely aligned with our partners in the Gulf," Rubio told reporters in Kuwait City before departing for Bahrain. "That's why I've taken these trips now, and it's the reason why I'm here."