President Donald Trump’s obsession with making the White House in his own image has led to his administration borrowing three statues from a collector of Nazi artifacts.
The loaned works are part of the president’s new pet project, making the Rose Garden into a sculpture garden.
The three bronze pieces come from the vast collection of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, who counts among his memorabilia two paintings attributed to Adolf Hitler, a signed copy of Mein Kampf, napkins emblazoned with Nazi logos, and a bust of Hermann Göring—the man who brought the world the Gestapo.
The statues on loan to Trump, 80, are less provocative pieces. One is of Alexander Hamilton, one is of Benjamin Franklin, and the third is of two Revolutionary War soldiers. They have been on loan since March 2026.
Crow’s collection includes a row of dictators in the gardens of his estate, where statues he has reportedly collected after they were toppled from town squares now reside.
Among them are statues of Stalin and Lenin, as well as one of Gavrilo Princip that Crow said “had to be smuggled across the border between Serbia and Croatia disguised as rubble for fear that the Croatian border guards might destroy it in a rage.”
Crow is a close associate of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and cites British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher among his most admired politicians.
He has previously described his vast collection of art and artifacts as “in no way a celebration of repressive regimes.”
Crow is reportedly not a fan of Trump. In the Republican primaries leading up to the 2024 election, Crow threw a fundraiser for Nikki Hayley, and in 2023 he told The Atlantic he “had proudly self-diagnosed himself with ‘Trump derangement syndrome.’”
But his reported animosity toward the president, who he said has dragged the Republican Party too far right, has not prevented him from aiding Trump in his quest to put his stamp on every corner of the White House.
The paved-over Rose Garden now has five statues, including ones depicting George Washington and the newest addition, Thomas Jefferson. Jeff Lundeen sculpted the Jefferson statue and also created a statue of Trump that now stands at the president’s Florida golf course.
Trump has also gilded the Oval Office, installed a permanent helipad on the lawn, created a ‘presidential walk’ with portraits of previous presidents and blurbs that range from fawning to mocking—Joe Biden’s portrait is a picture of an autopen signing his signature—and repaved the walkway from the residence to the Oval with African black granite cut and carved in Italy.
He is also attempting to build a giant ballroom on the former site of the East Wing, which he knocked down without warning.
The White House and Harlan Crow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
