One need not look far to see the degree of President Trump's vanity. Eliana Johnson and Daniel Lippman demonstrate this in an article they wrote for Politico documenting Trump's behavior while he and First Lady Melania Trump were hosting French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte during a visit to George Washington's Mount Vernon estate a year ago:
President Donald Trump had some advice for George Washington.
During a guided tour of Mount Vernon last April with French president Emmanuel Macron, Trump learned that Washington was one of the major real-estate speculators of his era. So, he couldn’t understand why America’s first president didn’t name his historic Virginia compound or any of the other property he acquired after himself.
“If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said, according to three sources briefed on the exchange. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”
The VIPs’ tour guide for the evening, Mount Vernon president and CEO Doug Bradburn, told the president that Washington did, after all, succeed in getting the nation’s capital named after him. Good point, Trump said with a laugh.
Along with Trump's later claim that he would have built Mount Vernon better and for less money, this is an astonishing statement. While some Presidents now wallow in obscurity (i.e. John Tyler, Chester Arthur and the much maligned Millard Fillmore) this cannot be said of George Washington. Aside from the Nation's Capitol, he is the only President for whom a state is named after. He is honored in every state of the union. Perhaps he has been away from New York City too long because there is the George Washington Bridge and Washington Square Park. He is on our dollar bill, but I guess Trump only deals in Benjamins.
Great men need not name things after themselves. Trump Tower is no Mount Vernon. That honor is bestowed upon them by others. When Trump's presidency is said and done, there will be far fewer monuments to him than to George Washington.
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