Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wants Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore. Is it possible?

Kirby Wilson, Tampa Bay Times on Jan 30, 2025

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On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna went viral.

The outspoken Florida conservative posted to X that she had filed a bill directing the federal government to add President Donald Trump to Mount Rushmore, garnering thousands of responses and re-posts. The message was viewed more than 1 million times.

The national news media put a megaphone to Luna’s proposal. Newsweek, Huffpost and The Hill each published separate pieces on the idea.

But there seems to be a problem with Luna’s plan: The National Park Service has said it’s impossible to add more presidents to Mount Rushmore.

Construction of the monument finished in 1941 when its original sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, died, parks official Maureen McGee-Ballinger told the Argus Leader in South Dakota in 2020. At that time, Borglum’s son said the monument has no more carvable rock on which to add presidents, the parks official said.

The monument currently includes the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. It was meant to honor presidents from the first 150 years of U.S. history, McGee-Ballinger told the Leader.

It’s not clear whether the National Park Service still feels an additional president is unfeasible. The agency did not respond to emailed requests for comment Thursday.

Sculptor Stuart Simpson told The Washington Post in 2017 that such a job would take four years and cost about $64 million — if the mountain can abide more sculpting.

Luna’s office did not respond to requests for comments.

In her X post, Luna, who represents part of Pinellas County, Florida, said Trump deserves to be added to the monument because of his “remarkable accomplishments for our country.”

The full text of Luna’s bill was not available online as of Thursday afternoon. But its title indicates that it would direct the secretary of the interior to “arrange for the carving of the figure of President Donald J. Trump on Mount Rushmore National Memorial.”

The bill has been assigned to two House committees.