Topline
Three-story-tall banners bearing the faces of President Donald Trump and President George Washington were hung above the main entrance to the Department of the Interior headquarters in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, marking the fourth government building recently festooned with a giant image of Trump.
W Birds fly past a giant banner with the image of President Donald Trump hanging on the outside of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Getty Images
Key Facts
Photographer Andrew Leyden captured two banners, each at least 30 feet tall and featuring the presidents under the words, “America First.”
Forbes reached out to the White House and Interior for comment on the banners, which come after several similar installations were blasted as a waste of taxpayer money and reminiscent of pennants hung by Adolf Hitler and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The portrait banners join similar ones installed in the last year at the Department of Justice building (it features the slogan “Make America Safe Again”) and the Department of Labor, where a Trump banner hangs alongside one of Theodore Roosevelt with the slogan, “American Workers First.”
The first banner, hung last May alongside one of Abraham Lincoln at the Department of Agriculture building, has since been removed.
BIG NUMBER
$16,400. That’s how much the USDA reportedly spent on the banners honoring Trump and Lincoln.
TANGENT
One commenter on social media Wednesday compared the banner of George Washington to a similar one used by the German American Bund’s “Pro-American Rally” at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Feb. 20, 1939 (Washington’s birthday). The rally was organized by a pro-Nazi American group and drew more than 20,000 attendees, who were greeted with an enormous, 30-foot-tall illuminated image of Washington at center stage. “This isn’t the first time fascists tried to use Washington for their own political gain,” the commenter wrote.
Key background
It’s not unusual for presidents to be honored on government property but large, exterior banners featuring a sitting president’s image are unprecedented. Trump’s administration has embarked on a wide-reaching campaign to place his branding on federal institutions, including renaming efforts and Trump-themed imagery on federal materials. After Trump re-shaped the board of the Kennedy Center with new appointees, for example, the board voted to add his name to the institution’s official title and building signage. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that the move was illegal because the center was created by Congress as a memorial to John F. Kennedy and cannot be renamed without congressional approval, and ordered his name removed. His name came down this week but the legal controversy is still ongoing. Trump-linked branding has also appeared on things like the U.S. Institute of Peace and several federal programs like“TrumpRx” (a prescription program), “Trump Accounts” (savings accounts for children) and the “Trump Gold Card” visa initiative, all of which drew legal or administrative scrutiny.