While American families continue to face the pressures of inflation, elevated food prices, and rising interest rates, a new report has revealed that the Biden administration’s State Department quietly spent over $1.2 million of taxpayer money on luxury swimming pool upgrades at U.S. embassies abroad—including in unstable and adversarial nations.
The findings, led by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), outline at least 14 separate swimming pool-related expenditures across seven countries. These include upgrades at diplomatic compounds in Iraq, Sudan, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and notably, Russia—even after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The spending, which ranges from mechanical repairs to new pool decks and dehumidification systems, was made during a time of mounting domestic economic strain.
“The Biden State Department threw a blowout summer pool party on your dime,” Ernst said in a statement. “Bureaucrats might think wasting millions is a drop in the bucket, but I am sick and tired of taxpayers getting tossed in the deep end by Washington.”
The expenditures appear even more out of touch when examined individually. In Baghdad, $444,000 went toward upgrading the indoor dehumidification system at the U.S. Embassy—a facility already notorious for its excessive $750 million construction cost. In Erbil, Iraq, another $10,000 was used for mechanical pool repairs.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow, where diplomatic relations have sharply deteriorated, saw $41,259 spent to replace a swimming pool sewer pump in 2022, just months after the Kremlin launched its assault on Ukraine.
Additional spending included $24,000 for a pool deck at the U.S. Embassy in Sudan, despite that country being under a State Department “do not travel” warning and with embassy operations in Khartoum suspended since 2023 due to conflict.
According to Ernst, most of the funds were not even used to build new facilities, but to upgrade existing ones—often at substantial cost, with little explanation or justification to taxpayers. The Biden administration has not issued a public defense of the expenditures.
Ernst, who has aligned closely with President Donald Trump’s agenda on cutting government waste, has pledged to work with Trump’s team to eliminate such discretionary spending if he returns to office.
The senator’s report underscores a broader critique of the Biden administration’s spending priorities—priorities that, according to critics, have favored overseas perks while Americans at home face financial hardship.
