Is Donald Trump being added to the sculptures of the four presidents at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota as of April 1, 2026? No, that's not true: That was an April Fool's Day joke. The article that started the rumor was written under the pen name Olaf Priol -- an anagram of April Fool.
The story appeared in a post (archived here) on X by @TheGriftReport account on March 31, 2026. It opened:
Donald Trump's face is taking shape on Mount Rushmore today as a new addition after he gave the go ahead.
The entry included a picture. Here is what the image looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @TheGriftReport on X.com.)
The story, however, was an April Fool's Day joke that originated from a Daily Mail article (archived here) published earlier on the same day, when some time zones had already entered April 1.
Google's "About this image" tab said that the picture illustrating the piece was not real -- it was generated by Google AI:
(Image source: Google.)
The byline -- Olaf Priol -- was an anagram of April Fool, an additional hint at the story's nature.
The same pen name was previously used by other journalists -- for example, at the Guardian (archived here) -- to publish made-up stories on April Fool's Day.
The existing composition at Mount Rushmore (archived here) shows the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Previous reports (archived here) suggested that adding any more figures would be nearly impossible due to the stone's limitations.
