. . . you have a report where no one is identified where the info came from and no one was allowed to deny or confirm the story. It' sjust put out there to embarrass the president.
The "debate" in this forum about the New York
Times story strikes me as rather confused―wholly apart from the predictable bickering about the accuracy of the
Times' reporting.
First of all, the subject of
the Times report wasn't Trump's apparent desire to have his face added to the monument on Mount Rushmore; it was that Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota (where the monument is located), met with Vice President Mike Pence in response to speculation that she was trying to replace him as Trump's vice presidential candidate:
Ms. Noem came to the White House . . . to meet not with Mr. Trump, but with Vice President Mike Pence. Word had circulated through the Trump administration that she was ingratiating herself with the president, fueling suspicions that there might have been a discussion about her serving as his running mate in November. Ms. Noem assured Mr. Pence that she wanted to help the ticket however she could, according to an official present.
The primary source for the claim that Trump had expressed interest in being carved into Mount Rushmore wasn't the New York
Times, but
a report published by the Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in April, 2018, quoting Governor (then candidate) Noem herself:
. . . after President Trump was sworn in, he relayed his dream of actually being carved on the mountain, according to South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem.
Noem said the two struck up a conversation in their first meeting at the Oval Office.
"He said, 'Kristi, come on over here. Shake my hand,'" Noem said. "I shook his hand, and I said, 'Mr. President, you should come to South Dakota sometime. We have Mount Rushmore.' And he goes, 'Do you know it's my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?' "
Noem thought he was joking.
"I started laughing," she said. "He wasn't laughing, so he was totally serious."
Noem, who is running for South Dakota Governor in the Republican primary in June, relayed the story to Vermillion native Mitchell Olson while the two were filming a segment for Olson's South Dakota edition of carpool karaoke.
The
Times did add a few minor details to the Trump-on-Mount-Rushmore story:
. . . last year, a White House aide reached out to the governor’s office with a question, according to a Republican official familiar with the conversation: What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore?
So last month, when the president arrived in the Black Hills for the star-spangled spectacle he had pined for, Ms. Noem made the most of it.
Introducing Mr. Trump against the floodlit backdrop of his carved predecessors, the governor played to the president’s craving for adulation by noting that in just three days more than 125,000 people had signed up for only 7,500 seats; she likened him to Theodore Roosevelt, a leader who “braves the dangers of the arena”; and she mimicked the president’s rhetoric by scorning protesters who she said were seeking to discredit the country’s founders.
In private, the efforts to charm Mr. Trump were more pointed, according to a person familiar with the episode: Ms. Noem greeted him with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included a fifth presidential likeness: his.
Finally, while Trump denied suggesting that his face be installed on Mount Rushmore ("Fake News"), in
the same Trupperance, he said it would be a good idea.
. . . based on all of the many things accomplished during the first 3 1/2 years, perhaps more than any other Presidency, sounds like a good idea to me!
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