Statue of Christopher Columbus installed on White House grounds | CNN Politics

A statue of Christopher Columbus has been erected outside of an ornate federal office building on the White House grounds — the latest sign of the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape cultural and historical representations across the nation’s capital. The installation of the statue — which is a replica of one toppled in Baltimore during racial justice protests in 2020 — occurred over the weekend outside of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It comes as the Trump administration pushes forward with its efforts to bring back statues that were removed in the wake of the protests. President Donald Trump, in a letter published by the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, praised the group for its “incredible generosity” in bringing the statue to Washington after the original was “torn down by anti-American rioters.” Many statues of Columbus, an Italian often falsely credited as the first overseas explorer to discover America, were taken down at the height of the demonstrations over George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Columbus has long been a contentious figure in history for his treatment of Indigenous communities and for his role u