President Donald Trump took his algae blame game to a whole new level on Monday with a wild social media post complete with an unexpected visual aid.

“Here is another example of a crazy pro-algae (likely paid) protestor,” Trump wrote along with an image of a demonstrator at the Reflecting Pool wearing an inflatable frog costume with “AMPHIFA” written across the belly:

Donald Trump on Truth Social

Donald Trump

Trump shelled out more than $14 million in taxpayer money to have the pool drained, the bottom painted in a color he called “American flag blue,” and then refilled with water.

Problems began almost immediately.

The blue bottom started to peel off in chunks, and an algal bloom turned the water green. Experts said the new blue-colored bottom may have actually helped to create favorable conditions for the algae.

Craig Paulette, Nadine Seiler and Karen Irwin hold protest signs and chant at the Reflecting Pool on June 21, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Among the slogans chanted were "Let's grow algae, let's grow!"

Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Not surprisingly, protesters have turned up to the Reflecting Pool to mock the president’s efforts.

“I’m pushing back against the incompetence,” protester Nadine Seiler told WUSA. “This reflecting pool is a reflection of the incompetence of this fascist regime.”

Trump claimed that vandals using “chemicals” caused those problems at the pool. He also said, without providing evidence, that vandals using a “box-cutter or a knife of some kind” cut a 350-foot-long “slit.” That’s almost the length of a football field, including the end zones.

Although there’s no indication they had anything to do with the algae or the peeling paint or the “chemicals” Trump mentioned, several people have been arrested over the past few days.

Seiler told WUSA she witnessed one of those arrests.

“The man put his hand and touched the peeling blue paint, and that’s what they’re calling vandalism,” she said.

In his Truth Social post, Trump also complained about a sign the protesters were holding: “First they came for the algae.”

That’s a play on the 1946 poem “First They Came” by Martin Niemöller, a German pastor who initially supported Adolf Hitler and the Nazis before turning against the party. He spent much of WWII as a prisoner in a concentration camp.

On social media, critics couldn’t get over Trump’s choice of image to go with his latest gripe: