In May 2026, the White House posted (archived) a meme consisting of a pair of photographs allegedly documenting a pristine, gleaming-white Columbus Fountain in Washington, D.C., under U.S. President Donald Trump and the same monument looking squalid and covered in graffiti under former President Joe Biden.
In the meme, the two images are bisected by the label "DECLINE IS A CHOICE":
(X user @TheWhiteHouse)
Evidence confirms the images themselves are authentic and were taken during the Biden and Trump administrations, respectively, but the caption of one of them is misleading.
The photo labeled "Joe Biden" was taken immediately after a July 24, 2024, pro-Palestine demonstration during which protesters vandalized the fountain. Clean-up of the monument started the following day, and indeed is what is pictured in the top photo. The implication that the photo shows the fountain was allowed to "decline" into such a state is therefore false and we rate this meme overall as miscaptioned.
The photo labeled "Donald Trump" was taken on May 28, 2026, upon completion of a five-month restoration by the National Park Service as part of the Trump administration's "Making DC Safe & Beautiful" initiative in preparation for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Biden administration's clean-up
The top photograph was taken on July 25, 2024, by Ginger Gibson of NBC News. Demonstrators had sprayed pro-Palestine graffiti on the fountain after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the U.S. capital and gave an address to Congress.
Per NBC's caption: "Workers clean graffiti from a statue outside Union Station on Thursday, a day after hundreds of protesters marched against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to Congress."
Other photographs taken by a local reporter also documented the clean-up effort by National Park Service workers:
The fountain was therefore clean and graffiti-free before Trump took office, as shown in this Google Street View image captured in December 2024. Its shoddy appearance in the previous pictures was the result of a specific event that left the monument vandalized, not a general "decline" under Biden.
(Google Street View)
Trump administration's restoration
In January 2026, the Trump administration announced plans to restore fountains and address aging park infrastructure across Washington. In late May, the Interior Department inaugurated the fully restored Columbus Circle fountain, with flowing water for the first time since 2007.
A National Mall and Memorial Parks Facebook post stated:
The last time water flowed from the Columbus Circle fountain at Union Station, the first iPhone didn't exist. For the first time since 2007, the fountain is flowing again.
Today, [Interior] Secretary Doug Burgum and the National Park Service celebrated the reopening of the rehabilitated fountain and plaza as part of President Trump's efforts to keep the Nation's Capital safe, beautiful, and worthy of the greatest nation on Earth.
The New York Times reported that the restoration of the Columbus Circle fountain and eight others in Washington was funded using $60 million in fees collected from visitors at national parks across the country. Critics of the project argued that more-urgent structural restorations were needed elsewhere in the country rather than cosmetic changes in the capital. For example, other national parks were seeking funds to repair crumbling walls, fill potholes, replace ambulances and fix sewerage.
Proponents of the restoration said fees from park visitors were a good use of funds for fountains that had been neglected for years. The Times noted that the cost of fixing these fountains was in line with estimates undertaken by previous administrations.
As the restored fountain was inaugurated, the federal government announced it would also spend $465 million toward repairs and upgrades at Union Station, where the fountain is located.
For further reading, Snopes has covered the history of major U.S. monuments such as Mount Rushmore.