President Donald Trump has already received blowback for reportedly turning the White House into a Hobby Lobby version of his beloved Mar-a-Lago. However, now the president is reportedly planning to plop a once-destroyed Christopher Columbus statue on the south side grounds.
According to sources of the Washington Post, the reconstructed statue—which was dumped in the Baltimore harbor during the 2020 George Floyd protests—will be transferred to the White House in the coming weeks. According to the Washington Post, “A group of Italian American businessmen and politicians, working with local sculptors, obtained the destroyed pieces and rebuilt the statue with financial support from local charities and federal grant funding.”
The exact landing place could still change, they said, and given there is plenty of demolition underway on the White House grounds, decisions might be up in the air.
“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to the outlet. “And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.”
Ingle is defensive of Columbus, because while children are taught a clean version of the explorer’s past, history tells another story. As a matter of fact, Columbus’ statue might have found itself on protesters’ statue hit list alongside other war generals during that contentious time because he, too, enslaved people upon arriving in the Americas.
Then again, the president has been playing fast and loose with history during his second term.
In the whirlwind of hundreds of executive orders signed upon taking office, Trump took aim at federal establishments—including museums and parks—that acknowledged slavery.
In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order aimed at restoring “truth and sanity” to American history. In its wake, federal locations have been ordered to remove exhibits mentioning slavery that, according to Trump, paint the U.S. in a “negative light.”
The Smithsonian was one notable location that was in the president’s sights. He said the museum was “OUT OF CONTROL” with negative messaging on slavery instead of positive perspectives of the country.
More recently, a Philadelphia exhibit showcasing the historical story of nine African slaves who were held in President George Washington’s home was dismantled. Philadelphia filed a federal lawsuit to have the exhibit restored.
But Trump’s efforts to destroy what they deem as bad PR for the U.S. comes with them bringing back the once-destroyed statues of men filled with racist pasts. Similarly, military bases once named after confederate generals—and then renamed—have been restored to their controversial titles under the Trump presidency.
All of this work spells out a larger message:The Trump administration is turning back the clock on U.S. progress to acknowledge the inequalities of the past.
Alix Breeden February 05, 2026 at 12:30AM From Daily Kos
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