President Trump criticized and praised the New York Times and CNN reports from White House advisers who contacted South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (right) last year to raise her face to Mount Rushmore.
According to an unnamed Republican official who spoke to the New York Times report on Sunday, a White House official contacted Noem’s office last year asking about the process involved in adding another face to the monument. A source told the Times that upon Trump’s arrival in South Dakota for his Fourth of July celebrations at the monument last month, Noem greeted Trump with a four-foot replica that included his face on it.
Following the Times report, CNN noted that Noem had told leader Argus in 2018 that the president had told him at an Oval Office assembly that his “dream” was to have his face on Mount Rushmore, along with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. and Theodore Roosevelt.
The president responded to reports of his Mount Rushmore “dream” in a tweet on Sunday night. Although, unsurprisingly, he continued to express his complaints against the Times and CNN for his reports, claiming that he “never suggested” that his face be added to the monument, Trump still could not exaggerate the report, saying that the inclusion of his face in the national monument “seems like a clever idea.”
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2020
Last month, Trump delivered a speech at Mount Rushmore in which he denounced the left as an effort to demolish structures that pay homage to racist figures in the wake of the death of George Floyd highest this summer.
“This monument will never be desecrated,” Trump said, during his Fourth of July weekend event at Mount Rushmore. “These heroes will never be defaced. Their legacy will never, ever be destroyed. Their achievements will never be forgotten. And Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom.”