McEnany Blasts Media for Algae Obsession, Ignoring Major Stories

Former White House Press Secretary and Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany is calling out what she sees as another glaring example of misplaced priorities inside America’s national media.

McEnany argued that major news organizations routinely pour time, energy, and outrage into symbolic anti-Trump controversies while giving far less sustained attention to stories that have devastated real families and exposed serious failures in public policy.

Her remarks came as the press continues to fixate on President Donald Trump’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a project that has quickly become Washington’s latest culture-war obsession.

Earlier this year, Trump announced plans to restore the aging reflecting pool, describing the landmark as “filthy” and promising to make it cleaner, sharper, and more fitting for one of the nation’s most recognizable memorial sites.

The project includes a new blue coating that Trump has called “American flag blue.”

“You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump told reporters. “Much better than it ever was, actually.”

The renovation is estimated to cost roughly $1.5 million and has already drawn backlash from preservation groups, environmental activists, and media voices eager to turn another Trump-backed project into a national controversy.

One preservation organization has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the renovation, arguing that the new design would change the historic feel of the Lincoln Memorial grounds.

“The vivid blue coating will fundamentally alter the visual and experiential character of the pool,” the group argued in court filings.

The dispute has received heavy national coverage, including cable news segments and detailed reports examining the project’s appearance, algae removal, and the politics surrounding Trump’s effort to restore the site.

For McEnany, the coverage says far more about the press than it does about the reflecting pool.

“This is par for the course for the media,” she said during a recent television appearance.

McEnany contrasted the attention devoted to the renovation with the comparatively limited focus on issues that directly affect American citizens, including crime, public safety, illegal immigration, and communities harmed by government failures.

She pointed to East Palestine, Ohio, where residents faced serious environmental concerns after a major train derailment, arguing that national media interest there faded far more quickly than the current obsession over a pool renovation in Washington.

McEnany also cited violent crime stories that briefly reached national attention before disappearing from the headlines.

One example she raised was the death of Iryna Zarutska, who was fatally stabbed aboard a train in North Carolina.

“Where was their extensive deep-dive coverage into the city’s soft-on-crime policies?” McEnany asked.

She also criticized the lack of sustained national attention given to angel families who lost loved ones in crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

“And what about angel families who have lost loved ones to vicious criminal illegal aliens that the Biden administration let in?” she asked.

“Are we to believe that their stories are less important than algae in a pool that no one swims in?”

That question cuts to the heart of the conservative critique of modern media: the press often elevates elite cultural disputes while minimizing stories that matter deeply to ordinary Americans.

For millions of families, the urgent issues are not landscaping choices in Washington, D.C. They are public safety, border security, rising costs, and whether government officials are willing to protect the communities they serve.

Yet critics argue that national media outlets often reserve their deepest outrage for anything connected to Trump, even when the subject is a renovation project aimed at improving a landmark visited by Americans from across the country.

To McEnany, the issue is not really the color of the reflecting pool.

The issue is the media’s judgment.

At a time when many Americans remain deeply concerned about violent crime, illegal immigration, economic pressure, and government accountability, McEnany argued that the press’s fixation on algae, aesthetics, and anti-Trump outrage reveals a widening disconnect between newsroom priorities and the lives of everyday citizens.

The controversy may be framed as a fight over a national monument, but for conservatives, it has become another example of a media class that seems more interested in attacking Trump than asking why so many American families feel ignored.