DONALD TRUMP HAS denied a report by the New York Times that he suggested adding his face to the famous Mount Rushmore monument.
The paper reported over the weekend that Trump had said he aspired to have his face on Mount Rushmore, while last year a White House aide reached out to the South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to ask what the process was for adding another president to the monument.
Last night, Trump tweeted to call the story “fake news”.
“Never suggested it although, based on all the many things accomplished during the first 3 1/2 years, perhaps more than any other Presidency, sounds like a good idea to me!” he said.
Noem, a Trump supporter, greeted the US President with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included his face when he arrived in the state to celebrate the Fourth of July celebrations last month, the New York Times reported.
The sculpture currently includes the heads of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
At the rally on 4 July, Trump defended the landmark amid the wider discussion on race issues in the US and overseas fuelled by the Black Lives Matter protests, with statues and monuments taken down either by vote or by force.
“This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore,” he said.
“We will not be terrorised, we will not be demeaned, and we will not be intimidated by bad, evil people. It will not happen.”
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