President Trump has focused for weeks now on preserving statues of Confederate leaders from protesters he calls “left-wing mobs.”
Now, according to his reelection campaign, he wants to protect one of the most famous statues in the world — even though it’s in Brazil, and there’s no indication it’s under any threat.
Over the weekend the Trump campaign ran dozens of ads for the president and vice president, featuring an image of “Christ the Redeemer,” in Rio de Janeiro, above the text: ‘WE WILL PROTECT THIS.”
The statue overlooks Rio from the top of a 2,300-foot mountain. It stands 124 feet high, including its base, and its arms stretch 92 feet from hand to hand. Sculpted from reinforced concrete and soapstone, it weighs 700 tons.
The Daily Beast mocked the ads with a composite image:
There’s no indication that the massive sculpture is at risk of vandalism or removal, says the Daily Beast, which first reported the story.
“It’s also not clear how Trump or Pence might go about protecting it if it were threatened, which, again, it does not appear to be,” the news website says.
Despite the statue’s global fame, whoever chose the image used in the ads may not have realized it is located on another continent, 4,800 miles from the White House.
The photo apparently came from “an online database of free stock images,” the Daily Beast reported.
We have seen no response from the Trump campaign.