Trump heads to Mount Rushmore, where efforts to impose his likeness have stalled

President Donald Trump is returning to Mount Rushmore on Friday, and while the president has clearly considered adding his own likeness to this historic national monument, it’s unclear whether he’ll be able to move the mountains needed to make it happen.

He brought up the issue jokingly at campaign rallies, sent tips on social media and in the name That sounds good”. He even raised the possibility with the governor of South Dakota during his first term, telling then-Gov. Kristi Noem at the Oval Office meeting: “Do you know that it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?”

“I started laughing,” Noem recalled in a 2018 interview. report With Argus Leader. “He wasn’t laughing, so he was completely serious. … I said, ‘Come pick a mountain.'”

Although the president has spent much of his second term taking steps to impose his own style and tastes on the architecture in the nation’s capital and even has an airport named after him in Florida, that may end up in South Dakota. He will literally have to choose another mountain; It is structurally impossible to add a fifth face to the storied monument.

Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum wrote in 1936 that the stone had “serious” limitations.

“I doubt whether it would be possible to modify the fixed composition in any way to include a fifth head,” Borglum said. in question.

However, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who oversees the National Park Service, in question It was said during an interview that there was “definitely” room for Trump’s face. Trump ally Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has also introduced legislation that would regulate voting. in question “it would reflect his great legacy.”

invoice It is currently stalled, and his office did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on whether Friday’s visit would create new pressure for passage. The legislation has little to no chance of approval in the Senate, where it would need Democratic votes.

Trump face or no Trump face, the president is returning to the national park in a very different climate than his 2020 visit; takes a seat on an overpass, giving remarks and watching a fireworks display celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary.

Six years ago, Trump visited Keystone, South Dakota, at a time of crisis. The country was in a situation deterioration We are facing a global pandemic for which there is no vaccine, as officials fear a surge in cases around the holiday weekend. And the culture wars raged on protests Because of the racial divisions that have emerged across the country following the death of George Floyd.

Trump’s speech to a crowd of thousands at Rushmore briefly touched on Covid-19 and thanked first responders and scientists “working tirelessly to kill the virus.”

But at a moment when protesters were subjected to violence, his railing against cancel culture, which he described as a “political weapon” and “the definition of totalitarianism,” took a dark and divisive turn. tear down statues From Confederate monuments and other controversial historical figures.

“Our nation is witnessing a brutal campaign to destroy our history, denigrate our heroes, erase our values ​​and indoctrinate our children,” Trump told a crowd of thousands on a stage decorated in red, white and blue in front of the iconic carving.

He continued: “Angry mobs seek to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred monuments, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.”

Much of the speech in 2020 focused on remembering the country’s past and laying it out in grandeur, and Trump has repeatedly condemned attempts to examine the mistakes of that past (a fact made all the more ironic by the sculptor at Mount Rushmore). ties to the Ku Klux Klan). Trump has made this message a hallmark of his 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns. Shifting public sentiment on the issue has in part helped propel him to victory in 2024, paving the way for an aggressive cultural approach. agenda in his second term.

Trump first announced plans for a “Garden of American Heroes” — a sculpture garden honoring figures from the past — in 2020 under the watchful eyes of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

The president signed an executive order to establish the garden; that order was quickly rescinded during the Biden administration and then reinstated in 2025. The project has a plot of land in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., but none of its statues have been removed. complete.

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