This past August, the New York Times reported that outgoing President Donald Trump floated the idea of putting his face on Mount Rushmore, the monument to four famous Presidents in South Dakota.
Trump infamously used his status as President to host a thinly-disguised campaign rally at the national monument on the Fourth of July.
South Dakota's Republican governor, Kristi Noem, went on the record detailing a 2018 exchange in which Trump told her he'd always dreamed of having his face on Mount Rushmore. Noem remembered that she laughed at the idea before realizing Trump was serious.
The President furiously denied the reporting, only to later post a photo of his face against the well-known monument shortly after.
pic.twitter.com/FPSif7Ieff
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2020
He's since alluded to the desire publicly multiple times.
The President's eldest daughter and senior advisor, Ivanka Trump, renewed talk of Trump's face being added to the monument when she tweeted the same photo of her father on Monday.
Amazing photo of @realDonaldTrump during his visit to Mount Rushmore on July 3, 2020 (📷 AP /Alex Brandon) pic.twitter.com/indAz62v6B
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) December 7, 2020
The tweet comes as Trump and his allies continue to peddle lies that widespread voter fraud tipped the 2020 election to President-elect Joe Biden. Trump refuses to concede in what his own administration said was the securest election in American history—a move that flies in the face of precedents accepted by the men he longs to be carved alongside.
Twitter roundly roasted Ivanka Trump for the tacit suggestion that her father be added to the monument.
Enjoy it, because this is as close as he's ever going to get to it again. https://t.co/AGzwO64eqa
— Fernand R. Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) December 7, 2020
Amazingly narcissistic, but totally on brand.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) December 7, 2020
Four of the five won a second term. Guess which one didn't!
— Pepe L. (@realpepejoe) December 7, 2020
Those other heads are stone, and yet they're smarter than him. https://t.co/ACxBx3oX4K
— Black... but make it 90's (@RealMichaelWT) December 7, 2020
Never will this happen. https://t.co/xfxxCnqTik
— Marcia Newton (@MarciaN48023549) December 7, 2020
This might be your most pathetic tweet ever.
There is more of a chance of Spiro Agnew's face ending up there. Your family is a pack of con artist, money laundering frauds, grifters & lowlifes who prey on millions of ignoramus angry people relentlessly. Tick tock for justice. https://t.co/eDN31B46Ao
— Spiro Agnew's Ghost (@SpiroAgnewGhost) December 7, 2020
Long before Mount Rushmore began construction in 1927, the stone in which it was carved was known as The Six Grandfathers. In defiance of the Treaty of 1868—which promised the Black Hills region would remain under the Lakota Sioux Nation—the federal government forcibly removed the Lakota Sioux from the Black Hills after gold was discovered there.
Hundreds of Lakota Sioux, including children, were murdered by the government and Mount Rushmore was later hewn out of the Six Grandfathers to mark the so-called accomplishment.
Given that history, some said Trump's face would actually be a fitting addition.
Putting Trump on a half-completed project on land its original owners were cheated out of and then bragging about it is so on-brand it makes my teeth hurt. https://t.co/GcBDuIqLwy
— Gary Legum (@GaryLegum) December 7, 2020
Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor behind Mt. Rushmore, was part of the KKK. He carved colonizers faces into a Lakota sacred site known for millennia as The Six Grandfathers to memorialize genocidal conquest. The land its on still belongs to the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation). https://t.co/ehvWqpp2DF
— Ruth H. Hopkins (@Ruth_HHopkins) December 7, 2020
Trump's head on a literally unfinished monument created on stolen Native land?
How fitting. https://t.co/q5dXq32rlS
— Kris Kringle's Kangaroo (@LilyKangaroo) December 7, 2020
Trump's final day in office is January 20th, when Biden will be sworn in at noon.
