Surprising approximately no one, President Trump dreams his face will be on Mount Rushmore, joining Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, a South Dakota Congresswoman says.
According to Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), it was one of the first things Trump said when they met. Trump had previously dismissed the idea as a joke, telling supporters at an Ohio rally last year that if he had suggested it, he was “joking, totally joking, having fun, the fake news media will say, ‘He believes he should be on Mount Rushmore.'”
Surprise: It may not be a joke. Noem says Trump brought up the idea within seconds of meeting her: “We were in the Oval Office,” Noem told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “He said ‘Kristi, come over here and shake my hand.'” After Noem invited him to visit her state, Trump said, “Did you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?” recounted Noem.
“I started laughing,” the Congresswoman said. “He wasn’t laughing. He was totally serious.”
Alas, it’s an impossible dream. For one, there isn’t space on the mountain for Trump’s face — or any other, said Maureen McGee-Ballinger, a spokesperson for the monument. “There is no more carvable space up on the sculpture,” she said. “When you are looking on the sculpture, it appears there might be some space on the left next to Washington or right next to Lincoln. You are either looking at the rock that is beyond the sculpture (on the right), which is an optical illusion, or on the left, that is not carvable.”
In a July 2017 rally in Ohio, Trump told the crowd, “I’d ask whether or not you think I will someday be on Mount Rushmore but here’s the problem. If I did it joking, totally joking having fun, the fake news media will say ‘he believes he should be on Mount Rushmore.'”
“So I won’t say it, OK?” Trump continued, as the crowd booed. “They’ll say it anyway. You watch tomorrow: ‘Trump thinks he should be on Mount Rushmore.’ What a dishonest group of people.”
