Trump taking steps toward installing a Columbus statue near the White House

President Trump Plans to Install Christopher Columbus Statue Near White House

President Donald Trump is moving forward with plans to install a replica of a Christopher Columbus statue near the White House, reviving a monument that was previously toppled and thrown into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor during racial justice protests in 2020.

John Pica, president of the Italian American Organizations United and a Maryland lobbyist, confirmed that his group has agreed to loan the Columbus statue to the federal government. The arrangement was finalized Wednesday after White House representatives first reached out around Columbus Day last year.

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” Pica told The Associated Press, suggesting the installation could happen within two weeks. The statue is a replica created by artist Will Hemsley, who incorporated parts of the original monument that was vandalized on July 4, 2020, amid nationwide protests following George Floyd’s death.

Maryland State Delegate Nino Mangione, a Republican who helped secure a new home for the statue after its retrieval from the harbor, also confirmed the plans. “I was there when we got it out of the harbor,” Mangione said, noting that the newly restored statue is “beautiful.”

While the White House declined to comment specifically on the statue plans, Trump spokesman David Ingle made the administration’s position clear: “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.”

The move aligns with Trump’s broader efforts to reshape historical narratives as the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The president has consistently advocated for a traditional view of Columbus as a pioneering explorer whose 1492 voyage marked the beginning of European influence in the Americas.

However, Columbus’s legacy has evolved significantly in recent years. Many historians and educators now emphasize how European colonization led to the displacement, subjugation, and death of countless Native Americans. This shift in perspective has prompted numerous communities across the country to replace Columbus Day celebrations with Indigenous Peoples Day observances.

President Biden became the first U.S. president to formally recognize Indigenous Peoples Day with a proclamation in 2021, highlighting the changing national conversation around Columbus’s place in American history.

Trump has firmly positioned himself against these changing perspectives. Last April, he vowed to bring “Columbus Day back from the ashes,” criticizing Democrats for doing “everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much.”

In his Columbus Day proclamation last October, Trump praised the explorer as “the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth,” while making no mention of Indigenous Peoples Day.

For Pica and the Italian American Organizations United, the statue represents a celebration of Italian American heritage. The group has maintained ownership of the statue and specified that the arrangement is a loan that could be rescinded if a future administration wishes to remove the monument.

The Columbus statue initiative is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to reframe historical narratives. Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which criticized efforts to portray the United States as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

Following that order, the administration has initiated a comprehensive review of exhibits across all Smithsonian museums and has pressed federal agencies and federally funded institutions, including schools and universities, to scale back diversity initiatives.

As the statue’s installation moves forward, it stands as a symbol of the ongoing cultural and political debates over how America should understand and commemorate its complex history—particularly as the nation approaches its semiquincentennial celebration.