Last April, Donald Trump, French president Emmanuel Macron, and their respective wives, took a tour of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia mansion. Like a third-grader on a field trip to the nearly 300-year-old home, Trump was bored out of his mind, Mount Vernon president and CEO, Doug Bradburn, told Politico.
In an attempt to capture Trump’s attention on the 45-minute tour, Bradburn, who was leading the tour and later described is as “truly bizarre,” honed in on a subject the 45th president could appreciate — real estate.
A former history professor with a PhD, Bradburn “was desperately trying to get [Trump] interested in” Washington’s house, said a source familiar with the visit, so he spoke in terms Trump understands best — telling the president that Washington was an 18th century real-estate titan who had acquired property throughout Virginia and what would come to be known as Washington, D.C.
Trump was impressed, but he also had some advice for Washington. He should have done what Trump would later do and slapped his name all over the property. “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it. You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you,” Trump reportedly said of Washington. Of course, Washington’s name is on the nation’s capital, one of its 50 states, the Washington Monument, a major university, and many other things. No one, other than Trump, is in any danger of forgetting him.
