On Saturday, President Donald Trump will travel to South Dakota to deliver a 4th of July address at Mount Rushmore, and according to USA Today White House correspondent Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, his visit highlights an ironic victim of his vanity projects in Washington D.C.: Mount Rushmore itself, which the National Parks Service can’t afford to repair due to Trump’s construction spending spree in the nation’s capital.
As Ramaswamy notes, “The national landmark, which features 60-foot-tall faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt carved into the granite mountain, has $57 million in deferred maintenance needs, according to the National Park Service. As of the end of fiscal 2025, NPS had a backlog of deferred maintenance projects totaling more than $24.2 billion for monuments and parks around the country. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is redirecting tens of millions of dollars from fees paid to the NPS to fund ‘President Trump’s vanity projects’ in Washington, say House and Senate Democrats, citing reports and information revealed to Congress.”
Trump’s wide-ranging DC projects have raised no shortage of controversy, from his much-demanded White House ballroom, to horse statues he had doused in gold, to his embarrassing Reflecting Pool debacle, and more. According to Ramaswamy, “These projects have drawn criticism for a variety of reasons, including not seeking congressional approval and awarding no-bid contracts. An analysis of federal contract data by USA TODAY found that 20 days before Trump first announced the renovation of the reflecting pool, the government had already committed $8.5 million to fix the pool, even though the president said it would cost $2 million.”
This is not only diverting funds from parks around the country, but may breach the law. As Ramaswamy explains, “Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004, at least 80% of the entrance fees paid onsite must be retained and used at the national park where the fees are collected. The remaining 20% can be used to improve parks that don’t charge entrance fees…Democratic lawmakers also assert that the revenue from the sale of digital ‘America the Beautiful Passes’ appears to be funding some of these projects ‘without any guardrails or transparency.’”
According to a letter from Democrats to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, “Credible sources with direct knowledge of these matters have now reported to Congress that much, if not all, fee revenue from online America the Beautiful Passes is being used to fund the President’s ‘beautification’ projects in Washington. This means that this revenue is not being directed to national parks across the country.”
When USA Today reached out to the Interior Department for comment, a spokesperson said the agency has “many funding sources” to cover maintenance, and blamed former President Barack Obama.