In April 2026, a Snopes reader asked us whether U.S. President Donald Trump planned to rename the Washington Monument the "Trump monument" and plate it in gold.
The question appeared to reference a social media post by "Mike Oxmaul the Violently American Patriot" on Facebook, which included an image of a gold Washington Monument with "TRUMP" emblazoned on it, surrounded by Confederate flags.
(Facebook user Mike Oxmaul the Violently American Patriot)
Oxmaul's
As such, the claim originated as satire.
A Google search determined that no reputable news sites have reported on any efforts by the president to rename the Washington Monument or plate it in gold. If Trump proposed this, it would certainly be newsworthy.
The satirical concept of Trump turning the Washington Monument into a monument to himself is hardly a new one on social media.
Trump has defended people who display the Confederate flag, saying it amounts to freedom of speech. As of this writing, however, he has not publicly displayed it himself on official government buildings like the White House — another indicator that the image shared by the Facebook account was not real.
Two tools used to detect artificial intelligence content generation — Hive Moderation and ZeroGPT — determined there was a very high likelihood that the image shared by the Facebook account was generated by artificial intelligence. (These types of AI detection tools are fallible. Snopes cautions people against using them for definitive answers on media's authenticity without supporting evidence.)
Trump has a history of naming buildings after himself and changing federal facilities, resulting in many of these types of rumors and satirical stories. For example, in April 2026, we alerted readers to a fake story about Trump being added to Mount Rushmore.
Since the effectiveness of satire is subjective, we use "originated as satire" or "labeled satire" ratings based on creators' description of their work. It's your call on whether you agree.