President Donald Trump has had a life-sized statue of Thomas Jefferson secretly installed on the White House grounds, according to sources.
A depiction of Jefferson, the country’s third president, was erected in Trump’s new-look Rose Garden last week, without anhy public announcement, two insiders told the Washington Post.
The New York Post reported earlier this month that the work, created 25 years ago by George Lundeen, arrived at the White House at the end of June and was held for examination by security experts. Lundeen, 77, also made the 7-foot, 700-pound bronze “fight fight fight” monument to Trump that captures his raised fist immediately following a 2024 assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The new work depicts Jefferson working on a draft of the Declaration of Independence. Lundeen told the Washington Post that Trump loves it so much that he sent the artist a congratulatory message. “I just wanted to thank you. The sculpture looks really beautiful,” Trump told Lundeen.
Filmmaker Steven C. Barber acted as a go-between for Lundeen and the White House. “He’s going to put it in the frigging Rose Garden!” he reportedly told the Post earlier this month.
As part of his Rose Lawn makeover, Trump replaced the central grass lawn with a stone patio. The Jefferson effigy is the fifth statue he has added. It joins a statue of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and a sculpture called “Freedom’s Charge,” which honors Revolutionary War soldiers.
The Franklin, Hamilton, and “Freedom’s Charge” statues have been loaned by GOP megadonor and Nazi memorabilia collector Harlan Crow. The real estate developer, infamous for showering Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with gifts and favors for years, had them installed at his Old Parkland corporate campus in Dallas, Texas.
A spokesperson for Crow confirmed the loan, whereas the White House only admitted that they were on loan from “generous private American patriots.”
Maxwell Anderson, the former president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, highlighted an awkward link between Trump and dictators who led North Korea and the Soviet Union.
He told the Washington Post: “President Trump’s embrace of an official classicizing style in art and architecture finds its closest equivalent in authoritarian regimes.”
Trump has overseen a new outdoor statuary exhibition in downtown Washington that includes a statue of Caesar Rodney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence whose monument was removed from public view in Delaware during the 2020 protests amid criticism of his history as an enslaver.
The display is part of a broader effort by Trump to elevate historical figures whose monuments became flashpoints during the racial justice protests, including Confederate symbols he sought to protect during his first term through executive action aimed at preserving federal monuments.
In March, he also installed a replica of a Christopher Columbus statue that had been torn down in Baltimore during the 2020 unrest on the White House grounds.
Two people familiar with private conversations said Trump—who has himself been the target of repeated protests—has at times privately expressed sympathy with figures such as Columbus, who was celebrated for centuries as an explorer before becoming a flashpoint because of his role in colonization and enslavement.
