In mid-June 2026, social media users shared a rumor that a video showed a Fox News correspondent labeling something very clearly green as the color blue — specifically, the algae-infested water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Workers had recently completed U.S. President Donald Trump's directive to repaint the concrete floor of the Washington, D.C., landmark in a color he dubbed "American flag blue." The algae — a problem that existed decades before Trump's first term — reappeared days after workers refilled the pool in early June.
In short, this rumor was not true. While the in-question Fox News segment championed and defended the Trump administration's work on the reflecting pool, users miscaptioned the correspondent's reporting.
We emailed the conservative-leaning news channel to ask about users' posts and will update this article if we receive further information.
Here's what happened
The brief video users shared contained part of Fox News producer Johnny Belisario's field report that aired June 15 on "Jesse Watters Primetime." During the roughly 4-minute segment, Belisario sides with the Trump administration's efforts to beautify the reflecting pool and interviews people walking around the landmark.
A user managing the progressive Occupy Democrats Facebook page posted (archived) in part, "BREAKING: Fox News reporter tries to argue that green is blue in a stunningly stupid attempt to defend Trump's useless $15 MILLION renovation of the Reflecting Pool!" Other users highlighted the video or claim on Bluesky (archived), Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived) and X (archived).
We attempted to reach out to Occupy Democrats' listed email address and received an "address not found" error.
(Occupy Democrats accessed via Facebook)
In the Fox News report, Belisario says:
I'm here at the newly renovated reflecting pool. It's painted American flag blue. And the Democrats are gonna tell you, "Oh, there's green algae. It looks so bad." But there's pool guys cleaning it up right now.
He then praises the Trump administration, adding, "No other president would do that. But President Trump is still cleaning it up."
Users' replies under posts showed they wrongly believed Belisario said the water was blue. Some users specifically referenced a quote from George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984": "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
In the full Fox News report, Belisario mentions the blue-painted concrete floor and Democrats latching onto the story to criticize the Trump administration for the green algae problem. Then, he acknowledges workers' efforts to clean the reflecting pool. Later in the report, Belisario once again references workers actively cleaning the pool. He adds, "Rome wasn't built in a day, was it?"
For further reading, we previously reported about numerous times Trump allegedly fell asleep on video.