© picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com | White House
President Donald Trump returns to Mount Rushmore on Friday to celebrate the U.S. national holiday, with events including a flyover, speeches, and fireworks. He returns to the site amid a political climate that is vastly different from that of his controversial visit there in 2020 (see photo).
During his 2020 speech, Donald Trump briefly addressed the pandemic but focused primarily on his opposition to “cancel culture,” the defense of traditional American heroes and history, and criticism of protests and the removal of statues—a message that became central to his 2020 and 2024 campaigns.
Although Trump has joked—and even seriously proposed—adding his face to Mount Rushmore, experts say it is structurally impossible to carve a fifth head into the existing design. Gutzon Borglum, the monument’s original sculptor, had already expressed doubts as early as 1936 that any modification to the monument would still be possible.
According to CNN, some allies, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, have promoted the idea, and Luna has even introduced legislation to regulate the carving, but the bill is stalled and has little chance of passing the Senate.
Trump previously announced plans for a “Garden of American Heroes,” a sculpture garden in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., to honor historical figures. The project was established by executive order in 2020, rescinded during the Biden administration, and reinstated in 2025, but so far, no sculptures have been completed.
Mount Rushmore is a national monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in the western United States, known for its four enormous carved busts of American presidents in a granite cliff. The 18-meter-high faces are those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, chosen because, according to sculptor Gutzon Borglum, they symbolize the birth, growth, and development of the United States.
The project began in 1927 and was completed in 1941. More than 400 workers labored on the site under the direction of Borglum and, later, his son Lincoln. Mount Rushmore is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the U.S., drawing more than two to three million visitors each year, and is also known as the “shrine of democracy.”
Picture: © picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com | White House