Two sculptures have mysteriously appeared in Washington ahead of the elections. Who is behind these satirical and Trump-mocking works of art?
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
Groucho Marx said that. And wherever he is, he’s probably smiling at the political artworks in Washington right now.
Two statues have mysteriously appeared one week before the US elections, and they both have the misdiagnosing Donald Trump in their visors.
An unknown artist – or group of artists – has created a bronze replica of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk and adorned it with a giant turd reminiscent of the poop emoji.
Located along the National Mall near the US Capitol, the statue titled “The Resolute Desk”, comes with a plaque that reads: “This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021 to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election.”
It continues: “President Trump celebrates these heroes of January 6th as ‘unbelievable patriots’ and ‘warriors.’ This monument stands as a testament to their daring sacrifice and lasting legacy.”
The clearly satirical nature of the artwork refers to the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s criminal attempt to overturn his loss. Four people died on that day and Trump has said he would pardon those arrested should he win against Kamala Harris on 5 November.
The desk is a symbol of the Capitol attack, as one Trump supporter, Richard “Bigo” Barnett, was photographed with his feet on Pelosi’s desk. He was sentenced last May to more than four years in prison.
“All the folks who follow ‘Bigo’ need to know the actions of Jan. 6 cannot be repeated without some serious repercussions,” said US District Judge Christopher Cooper when announcing the sentence.
Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury last year for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, with investigations by special counsel Jack Smith and the House Jan. 6 committee concluding that Trump’s actions were to blame for the insurrection.
The second – and newest – statue is a tiki torch, which has been erected in Freedom Plaza, a few blocks from the White House.
The statue, titled “The Donald J. Trump Enduring Flame,” mocks the former president’s 2017 comments, when he defended the white supremacists who carried torches during a parade through the University of Virginia campus, chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
Again, the statue comes with a plaque, which reads: “This monument pays tribute to President Donald Trump and the ‘very fine people’ he boldly stood to defend when they marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. While many have called them white supremacists and neo-Nazis, President Trump’s voice rang out above the rest to remind all that they were ‘treated absolutely unfairly.’ This monument stands as an everlasting reminder of that bold proclamation.”
The rally that followed the University of Virginia march sparked violence and led to the death of Heather Heyer, who was murdered by a self-described neo-Nazi who drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville.
Trump stated that “there were very fine people on both sides.”
The identity of the artist(s) behind the artworks remains a mystery. All that is known is that the permit was approved by the National Park Service. The documentation shows that Civic Crafted LLC and Julia Jimenez-Pyzik requested permission to display the statues.
The Washington Post did get a call from the artist, who wished to remain anonymous and stated that other people were involved – but wouldn’t say how many.
“We are hoping they spark conversation about what we view are certain political issues that are relevant to voters and how they make their decision voting,” he told the Washington Post.
It was also stated that Jimenez-Pyzik was not involved in the project and that Civic Crafted was “nothing.”
The statues have provoked some reactions, as Pelosi’s nameplate has gone missing from the desk and the tiki torch has been snapped in two.
The mystery caller stated that they would fix it.
The statues won’t make it to Election Day, however, as the desk is scheduled to be removed today and the tiki torch tomorrow.
What is it with Donald Trump’s obsession with Hannibal Lecter?
The lambs have not yet stopped screaming for Donald Trump. Nor has the screaming in our heads as we try to understand what’s behind the Republican nominee’s fixation with Hannibal Lecter – who he keeps namechecking during his speeches. Anthony Hopkins has stated he’s “shocked and appalled.”
To no one’s surprise, Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination for the third time on Thursday night.
He appeared on stage after Kid Rock delivered a version of his song American Bad Ass and a shirt-ripping endorsement from wrestling has-been Hulk Hogan.
And if that doesn’t sound surreal enough, the former president rambled on for more than 90 minutes about the recent attempt on his life (suggesting he had been saved by divine intervention – “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God”) and often veered off-script with wild inaccuracies.
He pledged to build the rest of the southern border wall, “most of which I have already built” (false). He said that “groceries are up 50%, gasoline is up 60 to 70%, mortgage rates have quadrupled” (false).
And despite stating that “the discord and division in our society must be healed” and that he was “running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” he called Biden one of the US’ worst presidents.
He also labelled Nancy Pelosi as “crazy” and fell back on his usual anti-immigrant rhetoric, accusing other countries of treating the US like a “dumping ground” for criminals and “insane asylum” patients.
There was one reference which popped up during this long-winded and particularly unhinged bit of rambling about immigration that stood out to us here at Euronews Culture: the mention of one of cinema’s greatest villains, Hannibal Lecter.
The fictional character, famous from Thomas Harris’ novels and several films and TV shows, was referenced by Trump during his speech – and not for the first time.
“You know, the press is always on me because I say this,” Trump began.
But he still couldn’t resist.
“Has anyone seen Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner. That’s insane asylums, they’re emptying out their insane asylums.”
Attempting to get on Trump’s fava bean wavelength (heaven help us) and decipher what on God’s green earth he’s on about, the former president was threatening undocumented migrants with mass deportations and compared them with The Silence of the Lambs’ cannibalistic villain.
Trying to make sense of what Trump says and following his train of thought is akin to trying to explain the concept of gravity to a particularly absent-minded goose. It’s not easy and, ultimately, useless.
However, the Hannibal Lecter case remains an interesting one. It’s not a cultural reference you’d expect to hear from a presidential candidate, and the character seems to play on Trump’s mind quite a bit.
Indeed, this isn’t the first time Trump has namechecked Hannibal in his speeches, usually when he demonises migrants.
While speaking at his campaign rallies in May, Trump compared migrants to the serial killer, who he again referred to as “The late, great Hannibal Lecter” and said, “He’s a wonderful man.”
Trump knows that Lecter is fictional, right?
We’re pretty sure he’s never read the books and are willing to bet that he probably fell asleep during The Silence of the Lambs, as he’s not known for his robust attention span.
But it is worth reminding that Hannibal is a) not a real person; b) hardly “wonderful” because as much as we love to see him on screen, the cannibal has little empathy for his fellow man and unlike Darth Vader, for example, doesn’t have that much of a redemption arc; c) famously not dead, as the character survives at the end of the 1991 Oscar-winning film, and maintains his oxygen habit in the books and all other TV and film adaptations – thereby not being “late”.
Also, Anthony Hopkins, the actor who played Lecter across three films (because we’re convinced that Trump isn’t the sort of person who’d know that the first iteration of the character came courtesy of Brian Cox in Michael Mann’s 1986 thriller Manhunter, before being played by the peerless Mads Mikkelsen in the NBC show Hannibal), is still very much alive at the age of 86 and continuing to add credits to his impressive filmography.
Speaking of which, Hopkins was asked in a recent interview with Deadline about the fact that Trump was speaking about the character of Hannibal as if he were a real person.
“As if he is real?” Hopkins asked during a conversation. “I didn’t know that,” he continued, reportedly while laughing.
“Hannibal, that’s a long time ago that movie. God, that was over 30 years ago. I’m shocked and appalled what you’ve told me about Trump.”
Join the club, Tony.
So, why the apparent fixation on the cannibalistic antihero?
Daddy issues?
Possibly, but we won’t attempt a Freudian psychoanalysis for Trump, as that would be like staring into the jaws of the maddening abyss, where we’d probably bump into Stormy Daniels’ hellish avatar proclaiming: “I AM THE GATEKEEPER!”
Transference, in the sense Trump recognises a kindred spirit?
Hard to say, but Trump, who fools himself into believing that he is “a very stable genius”, possesses none of Hannibal’s devilish charms, impeccable tastes, intellect, cooking abilities (that we know of) or well-spoken abilities to communicate. Plus, Hannibal has a curious sense of morality and ethics. He has a code that he adheres to, and rudeness is the greatest sin of all. To quote The Silence of the Lambs, he tells Clarice Starling: “Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.” Considering morality, ethics and tact aren’t terms we’d associate with Trump, we’re ruling out the kindred spirit hypothesis.
A way of demonising migrants through a confused movie reference that shows Trump genuinely doesn’t know what he’s referencing?
That seems about right.
In other speeches, Trump has used the Hannibal touchstone in order to vilify migrants, who were “from mental institutions, insane asylums…you know, insane asylums, that’s ‘Silence of the Lambs’ stuff.”
He uses Hannibal Lecter to explain how America is out of control, injecting fear into the minds of the public through a well-known scary movie villain. It’s a particularly infantile but sadly effective scaremongering tactic that equates real-life issues with fictional evil, implying that other Lecters could be coming to the US and living among the unsuspecting population.
But because the reference is wrong in every way – for many of the reasons we’ve stated – it’s more confusing than anything else. We’re just glad that Emmanuel Macron isn’t referencing Leatherface, and we’re hoping that Kier Starmer doesn’t start peppering his speeches with nods to Freddy Krueger.
Trump’s tirades have never made much sense, but when it comes down to it, his cinematic fascination reveals two things.
Firstly, he’s lost the plot, messing up his fearmongering tactics with cultural references that reveal his genuine lack of culture. This means that anyone bashing Joe Biden for his age and capacity to run again needs to look at the lunatic opposition and weep.
Secondly, while The Silence of the Lambs may be an enduring and terrifying gem of a film, it pales in comparison to this year’s presidential race.
Mysterious Donald Trump Statues Sprout Up in US Cities
wo satirical statues of Donald Trump appeared in Portland, Oregon, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, over the past week, though the former was promptly beheaded.
Both works feature a human-sized golden model of the Republican presidential nominee along with a plaque titled “In Honor of a Lifetime of Sexual Assault” at the base. The plaque also included comments from Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, which was published in October 2016, in which he had a graphic conversation about women with host Billy Bush.
With less than a week to go until the 2024 presidential election, polls indicate the gap between Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris remains razor-thin. An analysis of recent polling by election website FiveThirtyEight published on October 30 put Harris ahead by 1.4 points, with the vice president on 48.1 percent of the vote against Trump’s 46.7 percent. However, it gave Trump a 52 percent chance of winning overall, versus 48 percent for Harris, due to the Electoral College system.
The first statue emerged on Sunday in Portland on Southwest 6th Avenue, next to an existing abstract nude bronze female sculpture, which was installed in 1975.
Quoting remarks Trump made to Access Hollywood in 2005, which leaked ahead of the 2016 election, its plaque read: “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p****. You can do anything.”
According to local network KOIN, this Trump statue lasted less than a day before being beheaded, and Portland City Council candidate and “fearless Trump supporter” Brandon Farley later recorded himself chipping away at the statue’s plaque.
A second statue of Trump, featuring an identical plaque, appeared in Philadelphia’s Maja Park on Wednesday, also close to a preexisting bronze sculpture of a naked woman. According to Philly Voice, it was swiftly removed by local authorities.
Newsweek contacted Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign for comment on Thursday via email outside of regular office hours.
In January 2024, Trump was instructed to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages after a New York jury concluded he had sexually assaulted and subsequently defamed her in a civil case.
Trump has strongly denied assaulting Carroll in the alleged incident, which she claimed took place in a New York department store changing room in the mid-1990s.
Last week, two mysterious statues appeared in Washington D.C., one featuring a giant pile of feces on Nancy Pelosi‘s desk with the caption: “This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election.”
The second statue was a tiki torch titled “The Donald J Trump Enduring Flame,” an apparent reference to the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” march, which featured neo-Nazis. Trump later sparked controversy for saying there were “very fine people on both sides,” though he also said there were “very bad people” at the far-right rally.
The Washington Post said it received two anonymous phone calls from the same person who claimed they were behind all four statues, though this cannot be independently verified by Newsweek.
Donald Trump Supporters Walk Out of Atlanta Rally Early, Video Shows
Pockets” of the crowd who attended Donald Trump‘s rally at Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion on Monday left as the former president was delivering his address, according to a local journalist.
Footage posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Greg Bluestein, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, showed significant numbers of empty seats early in Trump’s speech at the 8,600-capacity venue, with an entire top tier appearing nearly empty. Bluestein later posted a longer video at roughly the “hour-mark” of Trump’s address, which showed the number of attendees in some seating sections had further thinned out.
Georgia, which Trump won in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, is one of the key swing states that may end up determining the 2024 presidential election. Recent polling indicates the race remains razor tight, with an analysis of recent surveys published on Monday by election website FiveThirtyEight giving Trump a 54 percent chance of victory, against 46 percent for Harris.
On Monday, around 40 minutes into Trump’s Georgia address, Bluestein shared an 11-second video from the arena showing substantial clusters of empty seats. He wrote: “Pockets of the crowd at Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion start to leave as Donald Trump’s speech continues.”ư
Pockets of the crowd at Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion start to leave as Donald Trump’s speech continues #gapol pic.twitter.com/A3aBFLvApd
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) October 28, 2024
Around 20 minutes later, he shared a longer 22-second clip which showed the crowd was noticeably thinner in certain parts of the stadium, commenting: “We’ve reached the roughly hour-mark of Trump’s speech.”
Newsweek contacted the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris presidential election campaigns for comment on Tuesday by email outside of regular office hours.
The empty seats at Trump’s rally sparked some mockery on social media, with Democratic Party social media activist Harry Sisson writing: “YIKES! Trump’s rally in Georgia is practically EMPTY! The whole top section is blocked off and people have left the stands. Not a good look a week out from the election!”
Political commentator Peter Henlein, who has 34,000 X followers, shared one of Bluestein’s clips, adding: “I don’t think crowd size means too much at this point, but this is a terrible crowd size for Trump in Atlanta…..which unlike MSG is in a state that actually matters.”
However, Abigail Needham, a Trump supporter from Tennessee, shared a 50-second clip of the event on X and said: “I went to a Trump rally tonight in Atlanta, Georgia. It was great! So electrifying!”
In his address, the Republican nominee branded Harris a “low-IQ individual” and a “radical left Marxist.” He said: “The United States is an occupied country, but it will soon be an occupied country no longer.”
Trump hit out at critics who accused him of fascist or Nazi sympathies, commenting: “They say: ‘He’s Hitler.’ They say: ‘He’s a Nazi.’ I’m the opposite of a Nazi.
“How can Kamala Harris lead America when she hates Americans?…They’re very bad people who are a threat to democracy.”
On October 22, The Atlantic published an article by its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg alleging Trump had expressed admiration for the loyalty of Adolf Hitler’s generals, a claim the report said was backed up by the Republican’s former White House chief-of-staff John Kelly. Speaking to Newsweek, Trump campaign advisor Alex Pfeiffer said: “This is absolutely false. President Trump never said this.”
Earlier on Monday, Trump addressed the National Faith Advisory Board in Powder Springs, Georgia, where he said “religion is under threat” in America.
According to data from the University of Florida’s election lab, as of October 28, 3,050,666 people had voted early in Georgia, in person or via mail ballots. There are 16 Electoral College votes up for grabs in Georgia this year.
Trump held a major rally on Sunday at New York’s iconic Madison Square Gardens, where he spoke for over an hour and repeated his claim that money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been diverted to support illegal immigrants, an allegation denied by the agency.
During the event, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe sparked fury after calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” In a statement, Trump campaign advisor Danielle Alvarez said: “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
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