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Trump at the Mount Rushmore memorial: "The greatest Americans who ever lived"
Photo: Alex Brandon / dpa
Donald Trump signed a decree two days before his tenure as US President ended in January.
The title of the document was "Building the National Garden of American Heroes."
A total of 244 people were to be honored in a statue park - "the greatest Americans who have ever lived," it said in the document.
Trump first spoke of his idea in the summer of 2020.
At that time, in the course of the "Black Lives Matter" protests, some monuments were torn down by demonstrators, and so Trump discovered the topic of statues for himself.
How exactly American history and important figures should be seen in it, the then president wanted to determine if possible alone.
The decree spoke of "dangerous anti-American extremism" that seeks to "dismantle" the country's history, institutions and identity.
Trump had presented his plan in a speech at Mount Rushmore in the US state of South Dakota, where former US presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt are carved in stone.
"The selection varies from weird to quite inappropriate to provocative."
James R. Grossman, head of the American Historical Association, on Trump's statue park
Trump is said to have compiled the list himself, including Jeopardy presenter Alex Trebek, President George Washington and the singer Whitney Houston.
As the names became known, confusion arose.
The criteria seemed unclear, a seemingly arbitrary mixture of ex-presidents, athletes, cultural workers and entertainment figures.
James R. Grossman, head of the American Historical Association, told the Washington Post: "The choices vary from weird to quite inappropriate to provocative."
His colleague Karen Cox, professor of history at the University of North Carolina added: “It's just so arbitrary.” More problematic than the selection, however, is Trump's political calculation, which she suspected behind it: “He doesn't address the reality on the ground , to the debate and the turmoil that is raging in this country. "
No money from Congress
From the outset, it seemed unlikely that Trump's plan would ever be implemented.
It was not clear where to build, and there was no money from the US Congress.
Now Trump's successor has finally shot down the plan: Joe Biden revoked Trump's executive order.
jpz / AP / Reuters