Plans are underway for President Donald Trump to reinstall a restored statue of Christopher Columbus on the grounds of the White House. This statue was previously toppled and thrown into Baltimore Harbor during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

According to The Washington Post, which cited three informed sources, the proposal includes placing the rebuilt statue on the south grounds of the White House. The anticipated location is near E Street N.W., just north of the Ellipse.

This move aligns with Trump’s broader initiative against what he perceives as “woke” culture. His agenda has included renaming military bases to reflect their Confederate history and advocating for the removal of what he calls ‘divisive’ or ‘ideological’ content from Smithsonian museum exhibits, such as those addressing slavery.

While the White House has not officially commented on these plans, it has expressed admiration for Columbus. In a statement to the press, spokesperson Davis Ingle remarked, “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. President Trump will continue to honor him as such.”

The White House declined to comment on the plans to the Post and the Daily Mail, but praised Columbus in a statement. 

‘In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,’ spokesperson Davis Ingle told the paper. ‘And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.’ 

While Columbus is credited with discovering the Americas, his legacy has become more complicated in the modern era, due to his history of enslaving people and bringing disease and conflict to Native Americans.

Some states started celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day every October. 

President Donald Trump plans to erect a rebuilt Christopher Columbus statue on White House grounds. The statue (left) had been on display in Baltimore’s Little Italy until it was toppled and dragged into Baltimore Harbor on July 4, 2020, with only the pedestal left remaining (right) 

Baltimore Police officers look at the submerged statue of Christopher Columbus, which was dragged and drowned by Black Lives Matter protesters on July 4, 2020. The statue was revamped and will eventually find a home on White House grounds 

President Joe Biden joined them in 2021, becoming the first president to mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day. 

In October, Trump signed a proclamation to celebrate only Columbus Day, referring to the explorer as the ‘original American hero.’

‘We’re back, we’re back, Italians,’ Trump said in the Oval Office. 

Several Italian-Americans pooled their resources to bring the drowned Columbus statue back to life. 

Bill Martin, an Italian American businessman, told the Post that he and his allies spent more than $100,000 to recover the statue.

It’s currently being held at a warehouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. 

‘It’s not about Columbus ‘discovering America’ … it’s about the Italian immigrants who came here and looked to Columbus as a hero,’ Martin told the paper, downplaying the politicization of the explorer. 

Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates who was involved in the statue project, was keen to knock those who toppled the statue nearly six years ago. 

Video posted on social media captured the effort to topple the statue of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore, Maryland and drag it into the Baltimore Harbor. A restored version of the statue will eventually live on White House grounds

‘This proves that gangs, thugs and people of that ilk don’t control things by mob rule,’ she told the Post. ‘In America the people rule and our voices are heard.’    

The Trump administration had contacted Martin at the end of Trump’s first term with the pitch to relocate the statue to the White House’s grounds, but it hadn’t been restored yet, the Post said.

Trump decried the destruction of statues amid the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020, attempting to use it as a culture war issue in that year’s presidential election.

Many of those that were vandalized memorialized Confederate figures.

One of those statues, that of Albert Pike, has already been reinstalled in Washington, D.C. – near Judiciary Square – since Trump returned to office last January.