Megabill includes $40M for Trump's 'Garden of Heroes': Who would be in it?
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(NEXSTAR) Within the several hundreds of pages of the megabill the House passed on Thursday are a $6,000 tax deduction for seniors, no taxes on tips or overtime pay, big changes to student loans, massive Medicaid cuts, and numerous other provisions.

That includes appropriating $40 million for a “Garden of Heroes” to help celebrate America’s upcoming 250th birthday.

What is the ‘Garden of Heroes?’

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to revive plans he outlined during his first term to have a “National Garden of American Heroes” built.

Under his 2020 executive order, Trump called for the statue garden to be opened by the U.S.’s 250th birthday on July 4, 2026. During a speech at Mount Rushmore in July 2020, Trump suggested that his decision to sign the order came in response to what he described as “cancel culture” by “angry mobs” looking to “wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”

These remarks came only months after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. At the time, several monuments or statues across the country had become the target of attacks, especially those that honored figures who themselves had supported slavery.

The project never received funding from Congress, however, and the plans were ultimately squashed by then-President Joe Biden in 2021.

Shortly after returning to office in January, Trump reinstated the plans and called for it to be executed “as expeditiously as possible.”

What would the ‘Garden of Heroes’ look like, and where would it be?

Trump’s first executive order about the garden called for “lifelike or realistic statues,” with the possibility of those being donated or loaned “by States, localities, civic organizations, businesses, religious organizations, and individuals,” though the statues may also be commissioned.

According to a commission application by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the life-size statues are to be “made of marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass.” The listing, which has since closed, award recipients could receive $200,000 per statue, up to $600,000.

A location for the Garden of Heroes hasn’t been released but Trump’s initial order said it should be “of natural beauty” near a major population center. South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden proposed “a location in the Black Hills in [sight] of Mount Rushmore” for the National Garden of American Heroes.

Who would be honored in the ‘Garden of Heroes?’

Neither Trump’s executive order nor the current version of the megabill outlines exactly who would receive statues in the proposed Garden of Heroes.

The order Trump signed in 2020 does, however, list 244 possible names:

Ansel Adams Herbert Henry Dow Barbara Jordan Norman Rockwell
John Adams Katharine Drexel Chief Joseph Caesar Rodney
Samuel Adams Peter Drucker Elia Kazan Eleanor Roosevelt
Muhammad Ali Amelia Earhart Helen Keller Franklin D. Roosevelt
Luis Walter Alvarez Thomas Edison John F. Kennedy Theodore Roosevelt
Susan B. Anthony Jonathan Edwards Francis Scott Key Betsy Ross
Hannah Arendt Albert Einstein Coretta Scott King Babe Ruth
Louis Armstrong Dwight D. Eisenhower Martin Luther King, Jr. Sacagawea
Neil Armstrong Duke Ellington Russell Kirk Jonas Salk
Crispus Attucks Ralph Waldo Emerson Jeane Kirkpatrick John Singer Sargent
John James Audubon Medgar Evers Henry Knox Antonin Scalia
Lauren Bacall David Farragut Tadeusz Kościuszko Norman Schwarzkopf
Clara Barton The Marquis de La Fayette Harper Lee Junípero Serra
Todd Beamer Mary Fields Pierre Charles L’Enfant Elizabeth Ann Seton
Alexander Graham Bell Henry Ford Meriwether Lewis Robert Gould Shaw
Roy Benavidez George Fox Abraham Lincoln Fulton Sheen
Ingrid Bergman Aretha Franklin Vince Lombardi Alan Shepard
Irving Berlin Benjamin Franklin Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Frank Sinatra
Humphrey Bogart Milton Friedman Clare Boothe Luce Margaret Chase Smith
Daniel Boone Robert Frost Douglas MacArthur Bessie Smith
Norman Borlaug Gabby Gabreski Dolley Madison Elizabeth Cady Stanton
William Bradford Bernardo de Gálvez James Madison Jimmy Stewart
Herb Brooks Lou Gehrig George Marshall Harriet Beecher Stowe
Kobe Bryant Theodor Seuss Geisel Thurgood Marshall Gilbert Stuart
William F. Buckley, Jr. Cass Gilbert William Mayo Anne Sullivan
Sitting Bull Ruth Bader Ginsburg Christa McAuliffe William Howard Taft
Frank Capra John Glenn William McKinley Maria Tallchief
Andrew Carnegie Barry Goldwater Louise McManus Maxwell Taylor
Charles Carroll Samuel Gompers Herman Melville Tecumseh
John Carroll Alexander Goode Thomas Merton Kateri Tekakwitha
George Washington Carver Carl Gorman George P. Mitchell Shirley Temple
Johnny Cash Billy Graham Maria Mitchell Nikola Tesla
Joshua Chamberlain Ulysses S. Grant William “Billy” Mitchell Jefferson Thomas
Whittaker Chambers Nellie Gray Samuel Morse Henry David Thoreau
Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman Nathanael Greene Lucretia Mott Jim Thorpe
Ray Charles Woody Guthrie John Muir Augustus Tolton
Julia Child Nathan Hale Audie Murphy Alex Trebek
Gordon Chung-Hoon William Frederick “Bull” Halsey, Jr. Edward Murrow Harry S. Truman
William Clark Alexander Hamilton John Neumann Sojourner Truth
Henry Clay Ira Hayes Annie Oakley Harriet Tubman
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) Hans Christian Heg Jesse Owens Dorothy Vaughan
Roberto Clemente Ernest Hemingway Rosa Parks C. T. Vivian
Grover Cleveland Patrick Henry George S. Patton, Jr. John von Neumann
Red Cloud Charlton Heston Charles Willson Peale Thomas Ustick Walter
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody Alfred Hitchcock William Penn Sam Walton
Nat King Cole Billie Holiday Oliver Hazard Perry Booker T. Washington
Samuel Colt Bob Hope John J. Pershing George Washington
Christopher Columbus Johns Hopkins Edgar Allan Poe John Washington
Calvin Coolidge Grace Hopper Clark Poling John Wayne
James Fenimore Cooper Sam Houston John Russell Pope Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Davy Crockett Whitney Houston Elvis Presley Phillis Wheatley
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. Julia Ward Howe Jeannette Rankin Walt Whitman
Miles Davis Edwin Hubble Ronald Reagan Laura Ingalls Wilder
Dorothy Day Daniel Inouye Walter Reed Roger Williams
Joseph H. De Castro Andrew Jackson William Rehnquist John Winthrop
Emily Dickinson Robert H. Jackson Paul Revere Frank Lloyd Wright
Walt Disney Mary Jackson Henry Hobson Richardson Orville Wright
William “Wild Bill” Donovan John Jay Hyman Rickover Wilbur Wright
Jimmy Doolittle Thomas Jefferson Sally Ride Alvin C. York
Desmond Doss Steve Jobs Matthew Ridgway Cy Young
Frederick Douglass Katherine Johnson Jackie Robinson Lorenzo de Zavala

Speaking with the Washington Post after the list was revealed, James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, described some of the inclusions as “odd,” “probably inappropriate” and “provocative.”

New York Daily News reporter Chris Sommerfeldt also pointed out that Woody Guthrie, a suggested honoree, once wrote lyrics for a song called “Old Man Trump” which was about and critical of Trump’s father, Fred Trump, accusing him of stirring up “racial hate,” per lyrics published by the Woody Guthrie Center.

How much will the ‘Garden of Heroes’ cost?

While the megabill that passed through the Senate and awaits final passage in the House appropriates $40 million, the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts have committed a combined $34 million to create the statue garden.

Will Trump’s megabill pass?

Despite House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) turning his “magic minute” into remarks lasting more than seven hours on Thursday, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is expected to pass through the House and reach the president’s desk.

It has a narrow margin Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can lose only three votes, assuming all members are present for the final vote but the bill is still expected to pass.

The outcome would be a milestone for the president and his party, a longshot effort to compile a long list of GOP priorities into what they call his “one big beautiful bill,” an 800-plus page package. With Democrats unified in opposition, the bill will become a defining measure of Trump’s return to the White House, with the sweep of Republican control of Congress.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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