Trump slams removal of controversial monuments amid nationwide racial reckoning at Mount Rushmore

U.S. President Donald Trump visited Mount Rushmore in the midwestern state South Dakota on Friday to kick off Independence Day weekend, slamming the removal of controversial monuments amid nationwide racial reckoning as “a merciless campaign” in attempts to wipe out U.S. history.

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children,” Trump said when addressing the Fourth of July fireworks celebration at Mount Rushmore.

The president slammed a “new far-left fascism” in media and schools and “cancel culture,” describing those protesters targeting monuments which they think are symbols of racial oppression as “angry mobs.”

“Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity, so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America’s destiny,” Trump said.

“This monument will never be desecrated,” Trump said of Mt. Rushmore Memorial.

“Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and our freedom.”

Tackling the divisive issue with a divisive speech, the president was trying to rev up his conservative base four months before the general elections, some local analysts say.

Trump has been under growing pressure amid the surge of newly reported coronavirus cases and the continuous nationwide reckoning of the country’s racial injustice and police brutality, they observed.

The president’s remarks also came as local Indigenous leaders and others have called for the monument to be removed, noting it was carved on sacred tribal land.

“Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise or treaty than the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore,” Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier said in a statement condemning Mount Rushmore and the Trump event.