Missing out on the Nobel Peace Prize hasn’t stopped President Donald Trump from chasing another ego-driven spectacle.
Mount Rushmore has long been reserved for four presidents historians credit with fundamentally shaping the nation.
No one campaigns for a place, and there is no nomination process — and Trump wants in.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt never sought the honor — construction on the monument began in 1927, long after their deaths — making their place on the mountain all the more enduring.
President Donald Trump marked the recent holiday by offering his wife’s new son a special treat.
Betinna Trump, who married Donald J. Trump Jr. this summer, shared a photo of cookies served aboard Air Force One featuring the presidents of Mt Rushmore.
The sight of her with her father-in-law, who told the world he had more important matters than attending his firstborn son’s wedding.
Instead, Trump attended the NBA Finals, angering New Yorkers who say he nearly cost the Knicks their championship.
Bettinna and Don Jr. dated for five years before tying the knot in May this summer. All of Trump’s children attended except his youngest son, Barron, and First Lady Melania.
What no one expected was for him to gift Bettina and others on the plane with a cookie featuring the 80-year-old’s face alongside Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore.
Cookies were given out to the White House press corps.
Trump is serving Mount Rushmore cookies with his face on it on his Qatari plane tonight pic.twitter.com/RY9xUKnOvJ
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) July 4, 2026
“Trump is serving Mount Rushmore cookies with his face on it on his Qatari plane tonight,” one person commented on X, referring to the Boeing 747-8 previously used by the Qatari royal family and gifted to Trump.
CNN’s Betsy Klein took to social media to show that the media did not get the same treatment as Trump’s family.
“The cookies served to the first family and to the press aboard Air Force One today were… different,” she wrote on X.
The cookies served to the first family and to the press aboard Air Force One today were… different 👀 pic.twitter.com/7B4XsAjtvv
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) July 4, 2026
Social media had plenty to say.
“I hope this is a joke / AI image,” one X user posted. Another gasped, “You have got to be kidding me! This is insanity!”
One person wrote, “Imagine if President Obama or President Biden did this garbage? Fox News and every right winger, conservative and Republican would have a fit.” Another person commented in disgust, “What a disgrace! He’s an embarrassing freak.
The jokes piled on, too.
“Yikes edible food coloring printed fondant and the one with trump beside Lincoln is ridiculous,” one snapped.
Someone else added, “That MF starts demo on Mt Rushmore like the East Wing and we revolt right??”
View on Threads
Others were blunter still.
“The press need to stop giving this egomaniac airtime,” another suggested.
The former reality TV star first raised the notion in 2020 and said since he is “the greatest president for many, many years to come,” it would be “a good idea,” according to ABC News.
More recently, the president and his office have leaned harder on the idea.
President Trump on Mount Rushmore! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/5ERYuAVhGT
— US Homeland Security News (@defense_civil25) July 4, 2026
Following his July 3 Mount Rushmore address, Trump shared a video reimagining the monument with his own likeness carved beside Lincoln’s.
His spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, would later say, “There would be no better addition to the iconic Mount Rushmore than the 45th and 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump.”
The obsession found an even stranger outlet a few days earlier at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, where Trump stood before a lifelike hologram of the 26th president.
“Every day, a president faces storms most people never see,” the digital Roosevelt told him.
Trump replied that he “appreciated those words,” as if the actual president were talking to him.
When reciting some of Roosevelt’s actual words, Trump admitted he didn’t want to attribute them to him.
View on Threads
Trump’s Rushmore fixation is not an isolated obsession but the clearest expression yet of his long habit of stamping his name and face on everything he touches.
That habit spans the renamed U.S. Institute of Peace building, his push — later blocked by federal courts — to add his name to the Kennedy Center, a Trump Gold Card visa, and a proposed $250 bill bearing his image.
It also pops up in his name being placed on stimulus checks, framing his birthday celebrations as extensions of America’s semiquincentennial celebrations, and now his mug being placed on a Trump-branded passport.
For now, the addition might be a wish. Though the U.S. National Park Service manages the monument and the Trump administration directs it through the Department of the Interior, it has no one in leadership.
The agency has operated without a Senate-confirmed director since Trump took office in 2025.
Hopefully, that will be the stall to keep his face from being chiseled next to the legends.
