Will President Donald Trump Be Added to Mount Rushmore? The Truth Is Here.
President Donald Trump's face will not be added to Mount Rushmore anytime soon by the National Park Service.
Although Trump has previously suggested that his face be carved alongside the faces of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln on the national monument located in South Dakota, the government agency claims that this is not feasible because the rockface lacks stable surfaces.
"The carved portion of Mount Rushmore has been thoroughly evaluated," according to a June 27 statement from the park service, "and there are no viable locations for additional carvings."
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It would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible, to carve an additional face on Mount Rushmore" because of the granite's pre-existing fissures, according to Paul Nelson, a geomechanical engineer who oversees the memorial's Rock Block Monitoring System.
"One of the concerns about an additional face is that you could activate these fractures," he clarified. "If you remove material, you could be removing support."
Furthermore, specialists think it would be nearly hard to affix a pre-carved face on the monument. "They are fighting against the reality of the rock," as former Mount Rushmore National Memorial superintendent Dan Wenk once said.
But it is not because they did not try. In January, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna of Florida did, in fact, propose legislation to have Trump's face engraved on Mount Rushmore. (According to the Congress' official website, the House Committee on Natural Resources still has the proposal.)
Trump's daughter-in-law and Fox News host Lara Trump was told by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in March, without any supporting proof, that "they certainly have room for it there." Burgum also advocated for the POTUS' visage to be on Mount Rushmore.
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