Trump's ‘Hero garden' is coming - where Abraham Lincoln will stand next to Julia Child
Packed into the president's so-called 'big, beautiful bill' that was passed earlier this month is a 2025 executive order to build the garden to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Trump originally proposed the garden in January 2021 as confederate statues were being torn down across the country. The initial executive order states: 'The National Garden is America's answer to this reckless attempt to erase our heroes, values, and entire way of life.'
The newly passed legislation carves out $40 million to build the garden filled with statues of deceased historical figures — in either marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The 2021 executive order laid out nearly 250 names, including TV fixtures Julia Child and Alex Trebek, literary icons Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe, pioneers Amelia Earhart and Sally Ride, sports stars Kobe Bryant and Jackie Robinson, scientists Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk, performers Whitney Houston and Humphrey Bogart, and former presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.
A White House spokesperson confirmed to The Independent the White House is planning on using the list from the 2021 executive order when considering which statues will be made for the garden.
The original list includes 53 persons of color and 53 women, according to a Washington Post analysis. Notably, the 2021 list was made years before Trump's anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion push. As a result, federal agencies have since scrubbed references to several historic figures they deemed as 'DEI' material, including civil rights heroes and trailblazing Black Americans.
In March, the Pentagon removed a webpage about Jackie Robinson, who famously broke baseball's color barrier. A spokesperson for the Pentagon told The Independent at the time: 'As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military.'
Although the original plan was to open the park in time for the July 4, 2026 celebration, the president now hopes for the garden to be completed 'as expeditiously as possible,' according to the 2025 executive order.
The site of the garden hasn't yet been determined, but South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden suggested the park be built in his state's Black Hills. In a March letter to Trump, he said: 'We have a plot of land available in sight of Mount Rushmore that would be ideal for this fantastic effort.' Local indigenous groups have opposed the idea.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
25 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump: will 'substantially' raise tariffs on goods from India over Russian oil purchases
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he will substantially raise tariffs on goods from India over its purchases of Russian oil. "India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits. They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA." He did not elaborate on what the tariff would be. India's trade ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump last week said he would impose a 25% tariff on goods imported from India and added that the world's fifth-largest economy would also face an unspecified penalty but gave no details. Over the weekend, two Indian government sources told Reuters that India will keep purchasing oil from Russia despite Trump's threats. The sources did not wish to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Reuters
25 minutes ago
- Reuters
US could require up to $15,000 bonds for some tourist visas under pilot program
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. could require bonds of up to $15,000 for some tourist and business visas under a pilot program launching in two weeks, a government notice said on Monday, an effort that aims to crack down on visitors who overstay their visas. The program gives U.S. consular officers the discretion to impose bonds on visitors from countries with high rates of visa overstays, according to a Federal Register notice. Bonds could also be applied to people coming from countries where screening and vetting information is deemed insufficient, the notice said. President Donald Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a focus of his presidency, boosting resources to secure the border and arresting people in the U.S. illegally. He issued a travel ban in June that fully or partially blocks citizens of 19 nations from entering the U.S. on national security grounds. Trump's immigration policies have led some visitors to skip travel to the United States. Transatlantic airfares dropped to rates last seen before the COVID-19 pandemic in May and travel from Canada and Mexico to the U.S. fell by 20% year-over-year. Effective August 20, the new visa program will last for approximately a year, the government notice said. Consular officers will have three options for visa applicants subjected to the bonds: $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000, but will generally be expected to require at least $10,000, it said. A similar pilot program was launched in November 2020 during the last months of Trump's first term in office, but it was not fully implemented due to the drop in global travel associated with the pandemic, the notice said. The State Department was unable to estimate the number of visa applicants who could be affected by the change. Many of the countries targeted by Trump's travel ban also have high rates of visa overstays, including Chad, Eritrea, Haiti, Myanmar and Yemen. Numerous countries in Africa, including Burundi, Djibouti and Togo also had high overstay rates, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data from fiscal year 2023.
The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Illinois governor says Texas Democrats who fled will be protected amid arrest threats
Illinois governor JB Pritzker has vowed to protect the Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives who left the state in an attempt to block Republican efforts to redraw Texas's congressional maps. 'We're going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them and make sure that – 'cause we know they're doing the right thing, we know that they're following the law,' Pritzker said at a press conference on Sunday in Illinois alongside some of the the Texas Democratic lawmakers. The Texas Democrats fled the state on Sunday in an effort to prevent the Texas House from reaching the quorum on Monday needed to vote on a newly proposed congressional map. In response to the Democrats' actions, Greg Abbott, the Republican Texas governor, threatened to expel the Texas Democrats from the state House if they do not return by Monday at 3pm CT – when the Legislature is set to resume. Ken Paxton, the Texas Republican attorney general, also condemned their actions on Sunday and threatened their arrest. 'Democrats in the Texas House who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,' he said in a statement. 'We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.' But Pritzker, who said he will support the Texas Democrats, described their actions as 'a righteous act of courage', saying that they 'were left no choice but to leave their home state, block a vote from taking place, and protect their constituents'. Pritzker, a billionaire and potential 2028 presidential candidate, is reportedly helping the Democrats find lodging and meeting spaces, but is not assisting with the $500-a-day fine that each lawmaker will have to pay under new rules the House adopted in 2021, according to the Texas Tribune. The outlet reported that the Democrats have been fundraising from large Democratic donors to help pay that fine. The redistricting plan, unveiled last week by Texas Republicans, could allow Republicans to gain as many as five additional US House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Currently, Republicans hold 25 of Texas's 38 seats, and in the overall House of Representatives, Republicans hold a small majority of 220-212. The proposal came after pressure from Donald Trump, who urged Texas Republicans to redraw the maps. 'There could be some other states we're going to get another three, or four or five in addition. Texas would be the biggest one,' Trump told reporters in mid-July. 'Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats.' Abbott called a special session this summer and included on the agenda the redrawing of Texas's maps in addition to proposals to aid victims of the 4 July Texas flooding and other matters. Many of Texas's 62 House Democrats have fled to Illinois, with others attending the National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston this week and others meeting with the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, in Albany. 'We're leaving Texas to fight for Texans,' Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic caucus chair who fled to Illinois, said in a statement on Sunday. 'We're not walking out on our responsibilities; we're walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent' he added. During the news conference in Illinois on Sunday, Pritzker criticized the redistricting proposal, saying it would 'steal five congressional seats, silencing millions of voices, especially Black and Latino voters'. 'Let's be clear, this is not just rigging the system in Texas, it's about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come,' he added.
