'Thugs do not rule America': Replica of Columbus statue toppled by liberal mob may soon have a home — the White House

President Donald Trump is preparing to install a statue commemorating Christopher Columbus outside the White House. So there's no mistaking the counterrevolutionary and restorative nature of this act, the White House will reportedly erect a replica of the figure that iconoclasts unceremoniously tore down and tossed into Baltimore's harbor on July 4, 2020.

Columbus' four transatlantic voyages opened the way for European exploration of the Americas. While once celebrated for his courage and ambition — such that counties, cities, and towns across the United States were named after him — the Italian "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" who sailed under the Spanish flag has in recent years been subjected to routine defamation and denunciations by liberals.

Columbus' memory and likeness were especially popular targets during the left's Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination and iconoclasm campaign of 2020 that saw graves dug up, animals and places renamed, church windows busted, and cities torched.

As various municipalities and institutions such as the Smithsonian advocated for dropping Columbus Day in favor of "Indigenous Peoples' Day," radicals vandalized and toppled statues commemorating the Italian explorer across the country.

'Thugs do not rule America.'

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city's Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, in search of a target. After harassing restaurant patrons and other residents, the thugs set to work on toppling a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the great explorer — acts that were brushed off by city officials — the cheering mob chucked the broken pieces into the harbor.

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A piece of the Christopher Columbus statue is pulled from the harbor in Baltimore on July 6, 2020. Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Artist Tilghman Hemsley hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family's art studio. Using 3D scans of the remains, the artist, working in concert with his son, digitally reassembled the statue, then created a mold to fashion a replica out of crushed marble and resin, reported the Baltimore Sun.

"We brought it out of the harbor and reconstructed it, rebuilt it," Hemsley told the Sun. "So it's not really our artwork, but we were instrumental in putting it back together. It's like Humpty Dumpty."

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the newly thinned-out Washington Post that he and his allies ultimately raised and spent over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

'One of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth.'

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United and a former Democratic Maryland state senator, told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

Pica's organization took a straw vote and unanimously decided to send a statue to the White House. They reportedly signed the loan agreement on Wednesday.

Pica told the AP that he was "cautiously optimistic" that the statue would make it to the White House and noted that it could possibly be installed "within two weeks."

Two people with knowledge of the counterrevolutionary initiative told the Washington Post that the statue will likely be installed on the south side of the White House grounds, by E Street and north of the Ellipse.

Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates who was involved in the effort to recover the statue, stated, "Thrilled at the possibility our Columbus statue could be placed at the White House! Stolen, vandalized, and dumped in the harbor in 2020 yet never forgotten."

"Six years later it rises again as a symbol of Italian American pride. Thugs do not rule America," added Mangione.

The statue's potentially imminent installation comes just months after Trump issued a proclamation honoring Columbus, calling him "the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth."

Trump pledged to "to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory."

Although the White House would not comment on any statues, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to Blaze News, "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump."

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