As President Donald Trump is set to take the stage in front of Mount Rushmore on Friday evening to deliver an Independence Day speech, his White House thinks the monument could include a fifth president.“There would be no better addition to the iconic Mount Rushmore than the 45th and 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to multiple outlets, including ABC News.
This is not the first time Republicans have floated this idea. Just days after Trump was inaugurated to serve his second presidential term, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) introduced a bill to add Trump to the monument, saying he “will be forever remembered among the great” alongside Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.
“President Trump’s bold leadership and steadfast dedication to America’s greatness have cemented his place in history,” Luna said in a January 2025 statement. “Mount Rushmore, a timeless symbol of our nation’s freedom and strength, deserves to reflect his towering legacy—a legacy further solidified by the powerful start to his second term.”Trump himself has never publicly endorsed the idea, but he has also not shot it down. He called a story that he had broached the idea to the South Dakota governor in 2020 “fake news,” but he said he could see how it “sounds like a good idea.”“Never suggested it although, based on all of the many things accomplished during the first 3 1/2 years, perhaps more than any other Presidency, sounds like a good idea to me!” Trump wrote on social media in August 2020.TRUMP AND THUNE LOOK FOR RESET AT MOUNT RUSHMOREAdding Trump as the fifth Mount Rushmore president is just one of several ideas Republican lawmakers have suggested as ways to preserve the president’s legacy. Many have floated the idea of giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, naming airports after him, and making his birthday a federal holiday.The president is set to give his Fourth of July speech in South Dakota at 8:30 p.m. local time on Friday. He is also set to give another Independence Day speech on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on Saturday.
