President Donald Trump has had a statue of Christopher Columbus installed on the grounds of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House after the original one was torn down and hurled into the Baltimore Harbor during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

The replica statue, installed late Sunday night, is the Trump administration’s latest effort to portray the Italian explorer as a hero, despite his legacy having come under increased scrutiny in recent years.

“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to HuffPost via email.

Trump has embraced a traditional view of Columbus and his 1492 voyage to the Americas, which historians once described as the beginning of European colonialism in the so-called “New World.” Contemporary historians see Columbus as the catalyst for the mass slaughter and subjection of indigenous people in the Americas that took place over the next several centuries.

On July 4, 2020, demonstrators tore down the original statue and threw it into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor during protests against racial injustice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin. It was one of several Columbus statues vandalized around the same time.

The Italian American Organizations United, which owns the statue, agreed to loan it out to be placed on the White House grounds, CBS News reported.

“We are delighted the statue has found a place where it can peacefully shine and be protected,” John Pica, president of the Italian American Organizations United, told CBS News.

As public opinion on Columbus has shifted, many institutions and government entities have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day in a 2021 proclamation.

Last April, Trump proclaimed he was “bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes.”

“The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much,” Trump wrote on social media at the time.

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