President Donald Trump, some of his aides and supporters have proposed a number of absurd ideas to aggrandize him. By far the most absurd is their repeated appeals to add his likeness to Mount Rushmore.
James Rosen
Carved into South Dakota’s Black Hills between 1927 and 1941, Rushmore features four of America’s most celebrated presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. None of them ever asked to be memorialized, and sculptor Gutzon Borglum began carving the monument after all four died.
Trump, though, delights in breaking presidential norms. And so he has pushed the idea repeatedly of becoming the fifth Rushmore figure, all while saying he’s not serious about it.
Trump certainly sounded serious in his Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore earlier this month, on the eve of the 250th anniversary of American independence. Before the speech, Trump posted a large video depicting a gilded Mount Rushmore with his face chiseled into it next to Lincoln. In the video, he said, “I will be the greatest president for many, many years to come.”
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White House spokesman Taylor Rogers told ABC News, “There would be no better addition to the iconic Mount Rushmore than the 45th and 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump.”
As Trump traveled to the event on Air Force One, aides handed out cookies showing his face etched in the mountain next to Lincoln.
Dan Wenk, former National Park Service superintendent at Mount Rushmore, ridiculed the notion of adding Trump.
“Would you add another figure to da Vinci’s (painting) 'The Last Supper'?” he asked. “I don’t think so. You don’t change great art.” He said the rock is too fractured and too soft to accommodate another carving.
Trump would have to raise his historical standing — hugely, as he would say — to even have a shot at Rushmore immortality. Since Trump became president in January 2017, at least six surveys of prominent American historians ranked the country’s presidents. The first one, in 2017, didn’t include him because he was new to the White House. In the five subsequent surveys, Trump has not ranked higher than 41st. In the most recent one, he ranked dead last.
The four Rushmore figures, by contrast, all ranked in the top seven. One result would surely infuriate Trump: President Barack Obama, whom he succeeded in his first term, came in seventh in the most recent survey, conducted last year by the American Political Science Association, which represents political science professors and other scholars.
During an Oval Office meeting in 2018 with South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem during her successful gubernatorial campaign, Trump told her, “Do you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?” Recounting the meeting, Noem said, “He wasn’t laughing, he was totally serious.”
Trump, in typical fashion, issued a non-denial denial. Labeling it “fake news," he said he’d “never suggested it” — but couldn’t stop himself from adding “sounds like a good idea to me!”
U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., introduced a bill last year “to arrange for the carving” of Trump on Mount Rushmore. It was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources but has received no hearing.
Last fall, Trump proposed building a “triumphal arch” reaching 250 feet at the base of the Arlington National Cemetery. This drew opposition from veterans’ groups.
Another Trump idea is a “National Garden of Heroes,” featuring 250 sculptures of prominent Americans, to be built along the Potomac River just below the National Mall. Three executive orders spanning his two terms name a broad range of famous figures, from Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson to Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and Frank Sinatra.
South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden is lobbying for the National Garden to be built near Mount Rushmore, and a local mining company has offered to donate 40 acres for it. The House allocated $40 million for the garden, but the Senate has not acted.
Rosen is a former political reporter and Pentagon correspondent for McClatchy. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
