Inside Trump’s remake of the White House Rose Garden. First a stone patio, then statues

Inside Trump’s remake of the White House Rose Garden. First a stone patio, then statues 0 seconds of 1 minute, 30 secondsVolume 0% Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts Keyboard ShortcutsEnabledDisabled Shortcuts Open/Close/ or ? Play/PauseSPACE Increase Volume↑ Decrease Volume↓ Seek Forward→ Seek Backward← Captions On/Offc Fullscreen/Exit Fullscreenf Mute/Unmutem Decrease Caption Size- Increase Caption Size+ or = Seek %0-9 Next Up Chief Justice Roberts lets work on Trump's White House ballroom continue 00:50 Subtitle Settings OffEnglish(US)_v Font Color White Font Opacity 100% Font Size 100% Font Family Arial Character Edge None Edge Color Black Background Color Black Background Opacity 50% Window Color Black Window Opacity 0% Reset WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25% 200%175%150%125%100%75%50% ArialCourierGeorgiaImpactLucida ConsoleTahomaTimes New RomanTrebuchet MSVerdana NoneRaisedDepressedUniformDrop Shadow WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% 00:00 01:30 01:30 More Videos 00:50 Chief Justice Roberts lets work on Trump's White House ballroom continue 00:47 Moscow’s Tsaritsyno park opens festival of historical gardens 00:35 Europe's tallest statue of the Virgin Mary is inaugurated in a small Polish village 01:41 Trump gives press a tour of latest construction project: a new helipad 01:25 Trump orders Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea 01:13 Trump threatens Oman as it works with Iran on a Strait of Hormuz deal 01:19 Provincial leader says Trump is a ‘bad person’ as Canada weighs concessions for trade deal 00:33 Trump complains interest rates are ‘artificially high’ Close 1 of 6 | President Donald Trump has transformed the White House Rose Garden by adding statues of America’s founders. The makeover reflects Trump’s broader effort to leave a lasting mark on Washington, D.C. (AP Video shot by: Nathan Ellgren) 2 of 6 | A bronze depiction of Thomas Jefferson seated and signing the Declaration of Independence is seen before President Donald Trump speaks during an event to honor the 2025 World Series champions Los Angeles Dodgers in the Rose Garden of the White House, July 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) 3 of 6 | A statue of Alexander Hamilton is seen in the Rose Garden at the White House, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) 4 of 6 | President Donald Trump walks on the red carpet in the Rose Garden with Britain’s King Charles III, Queen Camilla and first lady Melania Trump at the White House, April 28, 2026, in Washington, during a State Visit. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) 5 of 6 | A bronze statue of President George Washington is seen at the edge of the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, Oct. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File) 6 of 6 | A statue of Ben Franklin is seen as servers prepare the Rose Garden for a dinner after President Donald Trump hosted the 2026 College Football Playoff national champions Indiana University on the South Lawn of the White House, May 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Updated 2:06 PM MESZ, August 22, 2026 Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share Share Facebook Copy Link copied Print Email X LinkedIn Bluesky Flipboard Pinterest Reddit WASHINGTON (AP) — Instead of adding new roses, President Donald Trump’s White House Rose Garden is growing statues. Trump put statues of some of America’s founders in the garden just off the Oval Office after he replaced its plush lawn with a white stone patio, turning the historic outdoor space into a look-alike of the one at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club in Palm Beach, Florida. At least one statue was a gift. Others are on loan from people who wish to remain anonymous. The latest addition, a bronze depiction of a seated Thomas Jefferson signing the Declaration of Independence, was a gift from George Lundeen, a sculptor from Loveland, Colorado. It joins statues already displayed there of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin. A fifth sculpture named “Freedom’s Charge” is also on the patio. The statues are part of Trump’s sweeping series of White House renovations, from his gilded makeover of the Oval Office to the ballroom and helipad that the Republican president is having built on the south grounds. These projects fit into Trump’s broader plan to leave his mark on downtown Washington through other construction projects, including a statue garden on federal land near the National Mall. Lundeen said he made the sculpture of Jefferson, the third U.S. president, decades ago and kept it at his ranch until he decided to spruce it up and send it to Trump for display at the White House in time for July Fourth celebrations of America’s 250th birthday. Steven Barber, his friend and collaborator, had reached out to contacts at the White House on Lundeen’s behalf. Trump-branded commemorative passports will become available across the US 6 MIN READ 310 Trump’s IndyCar race: Doing 200 in a 25 mph zone with manhole cover-displacing torque 2 MIN READ 464 Mini-Mozart heist blights anniversary tribute as thieves make off with 210 statuettes 2 MIN READ 464 “I thought it would just be a real nice thing on the 250th for people to look at Thomas Jefferson as he was writing the Declaration of Independence,” Lundeen said in a telephone interview. But the statue did not get to the White House in time. Barber said it was stuck on a truck partly because of heavy security around the celebratory events. Trump was shown photos and liked the sculpture so much that he decided to put it in the Rose Garden. When the president called Lundeen to thank him, he got voicemail. After the holiday, Lundeen’s office manager insisted he listen to one message in particular. This is our AP Ground Game newsletter. You can subscribe below and we will email it you 3 times per week. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google and Terms of Service apply. “Hi, George. It’s your favorite president, Donald Trump, and I just wanted to thank you,” the president said on the recording, which Lundeen shared with The Associated Press. “The sculpture, it looks really beautiful ... just by the picture I can see it’s really incredible, and we have a wonderful place right in the Rose Garden, and I appreciate it.” Barber said in a separate telephone interview that he had been calling the White House for months to discuss the statue but got little in the way of a response until about three weeks before Independence Day, when in came a “flurry of emails saying they wanted it.” White House signals that more statues are possible Details on the other statues added to the Rose Garden are relatively sparse. The statue of Washington, America’s first president, was lent by Harlan Crow, the White House said. Representatives for the Texas-based real estate tycoon and GOP megadonor, who made headlines in recent years for his friendship with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, did not respond to email messages from the AP seeking comment. A third statue, “Freedom’s Charge,” a 14-foot-tall (4.3-meter-tall) bronze sculpture of two Revolutionary War soldiers separated by a flag, was relocated from Dallas. Chas Fagan, the sculptor, did not respond to emailed requests for comment. The Franklin and Hamilton statues are from anonymous donors, according to the White House. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle explained Trump’s fondness for statues by saying that no other president has done more to beautify the White House and its surroundings. “From restoring our treasured landmarks, which had suffered years of abuse and vandalism, to cleaning our parks and the Reflecting Pool, President Trump’s bold vision ensured that America rang in its 250th birthday celebration with glory and pride,” Ingle said in an emailed statement that referenced Trump’s troubled effort to spruce up the pool near the Lincoln Memorial. He said Trump continues to make “long-overdue and necessary” renovations to the White House. “Thanks to the Builder-in-Chief, the White House will be properly glorified and remain in excellent condition for generations to come,” Ingle said. Trump’s love of statues extends beyond the White House Next door to the White House, Trump had a statue of Christopher Columbus installed on the grounds of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in March. More recently, the National Park Service installed a series of sculptures of Revolutionary-era subjects and themes at a plaza near the White House. Trump’s marquee statue plan involves building a National Garden of American Heroes near the National Mall that would feature sculptures of 250 Americans who have made significant cultural, political and other historical contributions to the United States. Several preservation and cultural heritage organization have sued to block the project, arguing that Congress must first authorize it. Barber said he and Lundeen are “in the mix” to make statues for that garden, too. At his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump has on display a 7-foot (2.1-meter) bronze sculpture depicting him with his fist raised after the 2024 assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. It was also made by Lundeen and was given to Trump by Anthony Constantino, a businessman and Republican congressional candidate from New York. The White House has long been a showcase for art, perhaps no work more famous than the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington that hangs in the East Room and was saved by first lady Dolly Madison after the British set the White House on fire during the War of 1812. Presidents have access to the White House’s vast art collection. Trump has said he went to the “vaults” and found the presidential portraits and other art he hung in the Oval Office and in other rooms in the White House. Portraits of former presidents and former first ladies also adorn hallways and public rooms in the mansion. In Trump’s first term, first lady Melania Trump installed a piece by Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi near the Rose Garden, making him the first Asian American artist to be featured in the White House collection. Before that, then-first lady Michelle Obama’s renovation of the Old Family Dining Room in 2015 included the addition of a painting by Alma Thomas, who was the first African American female artist to have her work added to the collection. DARLENE SUPERVILLE Superville covers the White House for The Associated Press, with a special emphasis on first ladies and first families.