Jeffrey Goldberg: It isn't only metaphors that go to die in the Reflecting Pool.

Apparently, some ducks might have died there as well.

The Reflecting Pool episode is not, in itself, important, unless you're one of those ducks, but compared to matters related to the economy, energy prices, and housing, of course, war in the Middle East and Europe, Trump's efforts to remake Washington don't matter all that much.

But they tell us a lot about the current chaos and about his approach to leadership and governance.

Here to make sense of the week, Leigh Ann Caldwell, the chief Washington correspondent at Puck, Stephen Hayes is the editor and CEO of The Dispatch, Michael Scherer is a staff writer and White House correspondent at The Atlantic, and Nancy Youssef is a staff writer and Pentagon correspondent at The Atlantic.

Thank you all for -- I just want to stand up for ducks.

Stand up for ducks.

That's our new motto at Washington Week.

But, Steve, let's just jump right into the Reflecting Pool.

What does it all mean?

What is the obsession with the Reflecting Pool, both the political obsession and the president's original obsession?

Stephen Hayes, Editor, The Dispatch: Yes.

I mean, look, I've spent the better part of three weeks trying to ignore this story as much as I possibly could.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Not me.

Stephen Hayes: Precisely because it wasn't - - when you look around, it's like we're really focused on the Reflecting Pool.

I think the president wanted to boast about what he's done to clean up Washington.

They cleaned up a fountain near Union Station.

This was part of a broader sort of refurbishment.

And his fans were out on social media boosting the president.

And immediately, or almost immediately, it was clear that this wasn't working.

Whatever had happened elsewhere, this one wasn't working.

And so you have the president trying to find somebody to blame for what has gone wrong.

Is it possible that there was a -- Jeffrey Goldberg: The international algae conspiracy.

Stephen Hayes: Yes the international algae conspiracy, the vandals that have cut this reinforced rubber that he said a couple months ago couldn't be cut.

I think it's possible that that happened.

I mean, you've had left wing types try to assassinate the president several times.

So, sure, maybe they wanted to embarrass him here.

But we can say that the way that the White House has reacted is inconsistent with the way the White House reacts when something like this happens.

Remember Kash Patel jumped the gun on the UFC plot.

He outed people in previous attempts on the president's life.

You've got the president himself who tweeted out a picture of the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooter right as it happened, before anything happened.

They've told us nothing about these potential vandals so far.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Michael, we reported this week, The Atlantic reported this week that in a meeting with Lonnie Bunch, the head of the Smithsonian, last year, President Trump spent most of the time talking about chandelier color.

Michael Scherer, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And also talking about his deep desire to knock down Dulles Airport and rename it after himself, rebuild it.

It's not really a joke at all to suggest that President Trump cares more about architecture, design, interior decorating than he cares about almost anything.

Michael Scherer: Yes, he's a hobbyist who happens to be president, and he's getting to do his hobby with public taxpayer dollars at what -- to whatever extent he wants.

Part of this is also that he conflates national greatness with what he can do.

And that's sort of part of his identity, it's part of his politics.

We saw him on the National Mall this week launching the Great American State Fair, patriotic event, supposed to be a unifying moment.

It was all about how great he has been as president.

That was his speech.

That was the speech he delivered.

And he is -- like, these projects are not going to end.

I reported this week that you know, he had said months ago that he was repaving the colonnade outside the Oval Office with black African granite.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It was Tennessee flagstone, but that was not good enough.

Michael Scherer: That was not good enough.

And he said he'd pay for it, but he isn't paying for it.

You know, the Park Service documents show that that the Park Service was billed for it.

And he keeps going to Congress.

He went there initially for $10 billion for D.C.

beautification.

They said no.

He said he wanted a billion dollars in the summer supplemental for White House security enhancements.

They said no.

He just put up a supplemental for the Iran war, and he asked for another $500 million for the Park Service, including he wants to rebuild the retaining wall, I think, around the golf course that he wants to redo, the sea wall there on the Potomac River.

So he's not done.

He's just getting going.

I mean, we're going to have project after project after project, because it is really the thing that captures his imagination, gets him excited.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is this because he's a hotel guy?

Michael Scherer: His whole life has been this, yes, from the beginning.

I mean, like, go back to the earliest quotes you can find of Donald Trump in 1983 or '84.

It's about what he knows about real estate and how to make buildings beautiful.

So, that's his whole identity.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Leigh Ann, let's move to things that happen inside government buildings, not the paint jobs and the marble.

There was this burst of bipartisanship this week, that was then burst.

The burst was burst by Donald Trump at the last minute not participating, deciding not to participate in this bipartisan effort.

Give us the backdrop of this.

Give us the background.

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Chief Washington Correspondent, Puck: Yes.

So, you're talking about a bipartisan housing bill that passed overwhelmingly from the House and the Senate.

It was like old school legislating, something that is really a lost art on Capitol Hill, something especially that's a lost art on the Trump administration, who Trump cares about things that can pass with Republicans only.

And it defied -- despite the president, it moved forward.

The president decided that he was not going to sign it into law.

There was a podium set up at the Capitol.

All the chairs were ready to go.

There was flowers and the ropes, everything, you know, in a production-like way.

This was going to be legislation that both parties actually could tout on the affordability crisis.

And -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Its goal was to -- its goal is to make it easier to build housing.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes.

It incentivizes more building.

It talks about the low stock in housing, trying to cut through that.

So, the president decided an hour before he was supposed to sign it that he is not going to sign it.

The reason is because of the Save America Act.

This is legislation that the president has been obsessed with.

It's about requires a voter I.D.

to vote.

It requires proof of citizenship.

He keeps adding things he wants on this, including prohibiting mail-in ballots, banning women or trans men from playing in women's sports.

And he has really paralyzed Washington over this.

The House of Representatives didn't do any work this week because one Republican member was holding everything up because the Senate has not passed the Save America Act.

The Senate is completely paralyzed as well.

The president won't sign foreign intelligence surveillance legislation because of it, won't sign the bipartisan housing bill.

You know, he went to Capitol Hill to yell at Republican senators about this very issue this week.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And they yelled back, some of them at least.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: One, one person, Senator Bill Cassidy, yelled back.

This was their opportunity to have a discussion with the president about why it's impossible for this legislation to pass the Senate.

There are not 60 votes.

You need Democrats in order to do it.

The president wants them to change the Senate rules, get rid of the filibuster, do whatever it takes, like the president is doing whatever he wants with the Reflecting Pool, building everything.

He is extremely frustrated with the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune won't change the Senate rules for this.

It is dividing the conference.

It is dividing the Republican base.

People are worried about the impact this is going to have on the midterm elections.

And I'm going to report on Sunday that -- and my column on Sunday, that one of the things that the president told the Republican senators in this closed-door lunch is, no one cares about housing.

At my rallies, no one cheers about housing.

What they do cheer for is the SAVE Act, is this voting legislation.

And so that really encapsulates how he's thinking about this and what his priorities are.

And, again, getting back to like the big picture here, Congress is completely paralyzed.