Trump Delivers His Reflecting Pool Closing Speech on Midterm Eve, Touting the Renovation Before Turning to the Election

President Donald Trump delivered the speech the White House billed as his closing argument before Tuesday's midterm elections on Monday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, USA Today's live election file reported, read by the desk this cycle. In an election dominated by the economy and the cost of living, Trump opened with the pool itself: he discussed his administration's renovations for more than 15 minutes, showed before-and-after photographs, and joked about renaming it the Trump Reflecting Pool before adding that he was only kidding. "We've now fixed all the piping, it's in great shape," he said, describing a "tremendous algae problem" the work had addressed, and he called the resurfaced result better and more beautiful than it had ever been.

Roughly 22 minutes in, the remarks turned to Tuesday. Trump called the midterm vote "the most important election, I believe, in our lifetime," and said, "The Democrat Party has nominated the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history." He accused Democrats of wanting open borders, higher taxes, and gun confiscation, and said voters would decide whether "these extremists will be given power or not power." The New York Post's account of the same speech, read this cycle, reported that Trump also defended his record on oil prices, unemployment, crime and immigration, renewed his pledge to give voters $5,000 apiece if Republicans retain Congress, and acknowledged the history working against a sitting president's party: "For some reason, the sitting president doesn't win the midterms, but we gave this a very strong shot," noting his 29 rallies across the country.

The speech closed a campaign blitz of more than 25 rallies in a month and was Trump's final set-piece address before polls open Tuesday, when voters decide control of Congress for the final two years of his term. Democrats are widely expected to take the House in pre-election polling carried across this station's Election Eve coverage, with the Senate still contested in a handful of races including Texas, Kansas, Michigan and Alaska. This story covers the speech as delivered; the desk previewed its scheduling earlier in the cycle and reports the delivered remarks here from the live accounts read this run.