Statement of Congressman Jamie Raskin On Naming Everything After Donald Trump:
Let’s Revive the Spirit of Compromise, Starting Today April 1, 2026

President Trump is renaming a lot of public things by adding his own name (Donald Trump) to them. My Republican colleagues are also rushing to introduce bills to rename public functions, memorials and holidays after him.

I’m not proud to admit that I reflexively opposed the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” the “Trump Institute of Peace,” the Navy’s new “Trump Class” warships and the “Trump Platinum Gold Card Program” to provide wealthy foreigners the chance to buy the benefits of U.S. citizenship (without the burdens of U.S. income taxes) for $5 million.

I also never fairly entertained proposals by my Republican colleagues in Congress to rename Dulles Airport “Donald J. Trump International Airport” and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority the “Washington Metropolitan Authority for Greater Access” (creating the acronym WMAGA) and the rail system itself the “Trump Train.”

But now I see that these proposals may be a better outlet for Donald F. Trump’s manic energies than something like, for example, the Iran war, illegal tariffs or wrecking federal agencies. I’m thinking we should make these little naming excursions the occasion for bipartisan compromise rather than immediate rejection and nationwide ridicule.

For example, my colleague Anna Paulina Luna thoughtfully introduced a bill to add Donald Trump’s visage to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota alongside images of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. Let’s resist the temptation to dismiss this as deranged. Adding Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore would not imply that we endorse his disastrous experiment with Elon Musk and DOGE, his Big Beautiful Bill to cut health care and nutrition to the poor to pay for tax breaks for the rich, his chaotic, illegal and unconstitutional tariffs, or his unauthorized, undeclared and calamitous war in Iran that has brought gas prices up to $4 for the first time since the COVID pandemic. It would just mean that we are a forgiving people and it is better to honor a narcissist rather than have him launch world war.

But here’s my bipartisan compromise: we should pass the Mount Rushmore bill only with a Democratic amendment to carve Jeffrey Epstein’s face right there alongside Donald Trump’s. After all, we can’t really do justice to Trump without honoring his best friend with whom he shared so many wonderful secrets.

Look, I know a lot of my GOP Colleagues would vote to add Trump’s name to hyphenate every single memorial on the mall. There’s pressure growing, for example, to turn the simple Lincoln Memorial into the Trump-Lincoln Memorial. As one colleague confided in me: “With malice toward none, with charity for all–or vice versa, what’s the big difference?” Although skeptical at first, I’m increasingly drawn to this proposal. We could rename it the “Very fine people on both sides” Trump-Lincoln Memorial and set up Trump’s statue seated directly across from Honest Abe, allowing the person who founded the Republican Party to face the person who destroyed it, a contrast that will never perish from the earth.

A more controversial idea may be Texas Congressman Brandon Gill’s “Golden Age Act of 2025,” which proposes removing Benjamin Franklin from the $100 bill and replacing him with Donald Trump. The $100 bill is, of course, the favorite bill of kleptocrats, tax dodgers and cocaine users, though with food, utilities and gas prices soaring, we may all soon have to get used to carrying Benjamins—uh, I mean Donalds—in our wallets.

But what if we put the great Ben Franklin on one side of the $100 bill and Donald Trump on the other, each with their most famous financial aphorism? Franklin’s picture can be accompanied by: “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Trump’s visage can be accompanied by: “I am the King of debt.” Let’s avoid either/or thinking and give voice to both financial philosophies.

Finally, I know that everyone’s talking about renaming our national birthday celebration “Donald Trump 4th of July Independence Day Celebration,” but we probably shouldn’t politicize this unifying national observance. But all is not lost because there are so many other national holidays, de jure and de facto, that we can name after the President, starting today! Let’s do it—it will be a grand bipartisan gesture and “altogether fitting and proper to do so,” as Lincoln might say. So here goes:

HAPPY FIRST ANNUAL DONALD J. TRUMP-APRIL FOOL’S DAY TO EVERYONE, especially everyone Trump still thinks he’s tricking and all you MAGA followers out there. See you at the Trump-Kennedy Center soon! And thank you for your attention, Sir!

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