Trump settles for July 4 eve flyovers and fireworks at Mount Rushmore

President Donald Trump has joked about having his face carved into Mount Rushmore. On Friday night, he will settle for standing in front of it during a White House-branded 250th U.S. anniversary event.

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Trump will kick off the weekend’s Fourth of July festivities by headlining a “spectacular fireworks finale” and military tribute Friday night at the national memorial in South Dakota, one of the White House-branded 250th U.S. anniversary events. He’s expected to stand against the backdrop of the statue’s 60-foot-tall faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt as he seeks to cement his own legacy in American history.

The president and his allies have pushed the idea of making Trump the fifth U.S. president in the lineup carved into the granite facade of Mount Rushmore, no matter that the National Park Service has said there’s no viable space to add another president to what it considers to be a completed work of art.

But that hasn’t stopped Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a Trump loyalist who oversees U.S. national parks, from advocating it.

“Well they certainly have room for it,” Burgum said last year in a FOX News interview with Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump. 

Again on Monday of this week, Burgum put Trump in the ranks with Washington and Roosevelt — though his historical detailing was wrong — telling Fox News: “We had Washington at the first, we had TR at the 125th, and we’ve got President Trump at the 250. All three of them, remarkable change makers moving our country forward.”

MS NOW reached out to the NPS this week seeking clarification on whether it would be possible to add another face to Mount Rushmore, but it has not received a response.

Two months ago, the president posted a picture on his social media platform Truth Social of his face atop Mount Rushmore, right next to Lincoln’s. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., has sponsored legislation to make it a reality, albeit a long-shot bid. And former Trump adviser Roger Stone has pushed a “One More for Rushmore” petition online.

Trump has repeatedly compared himself to Lincoln, insisting he’s been treated worse. After the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner shooting in April, which is being prosecuted as another presidential assassination attempt, Trump said he has “studied assassinations,” and they go after people that “make the biggest impact.” 

In October, he said he’s been told he is the “third best president” behind Washington and Lincoln. He said that made him “extremely angry” and that while it’s going to be “very tough to beat Washington and Lincoln, we’re going to give it a try.” 

As for Roosevelt, Trump paid his respects on Wednesday at the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota near the national park named for the 26th president.