Donald Trump has vowed to return a bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office as a ‘mark of respect’.
The bronze bust was removed by ‘woke’ Joe Biden when he defeated Trump in 2020 and was replaced by one of Hispanic union leader Cesar Chavez.
Trump, a self-professed Anglophile whose mother was Scottish, has described the wartime leader as his ‘idol’ and called the Oscar-winning 2017 film The Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Churchill, ‘my favourite film ever.’
Last night a source close to Trump said: ‘One of the first things he will do is bring the Churchill bust back into the Oval Office as a mark of respect.
‘Donald idolises Churchill and believes he’s the greatest leader the world has ever seen. He will restore him to a position of honour.’
The Churchill bust, by English modernist sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, was a gift from the Wartime Friends of Winston Churchill to President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965.
It took pride of place in the Oval Office until 2009 when Barack Obama replaced it with one of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
At the time former prime minister Boris Johnson, who penned a best-selling biography of Churchill, described the Obama’s snub as ‘an ancestral dislike of the British Empire.’
When Trump beat Hillary Clinton – who ran after Obama served the maximum two terms in office – in the 2016 election he immediately removed the Martin Luther King bust and restored Churchill ‘to his rightful place.’
Trump condemned protestors who daubed ‘racist’ on a statue of Churchill in London’s Parliament Square during the Black Lives Matters protests.
The source said: ‘He thought it was shameful people were attacking Churchill’s image when Churchill saved the world from the tyranny of Hitler.’
Trump’s close friend Nigel Farage this week called Trump’s trouncing of Kamala Harris ‘the greatest comeback since Churchill’, referring to the fact that Churchill was defeated in the 1945 general election only to return to power in 1951.
Last night Churchill’s grandson Lord Nicholas Soames welcomed news of Trump’s intention to return the bust to the Oval office, telling the Mail on Sunday: ‘I am very glad obviously. That’s lovely. I am glad he is doing that. I am delighted.’
Trump forged close ties with the Churchill family during his first term in office, visiting Churchill’s birthplace Blenheim Palace and befriending the 12th Duke of Marlborough, whom he affectionately calls ‘The Dook.’