Statue of Trump And Epstein Appeared in Washington DC, Removed

A bronze statue depicting President Donald Trump and late Financier and Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands appeared at the east end of The National Mall in Washington DC on Tuesday morning in local time, it has since been removed.

On Tuesday morning, a bronze statue depicting President Donald Trump and late Financier and Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein appeared at the east end of The National Mall, which depicted the two infamous men holding hands and frolicking. The work, entitled “The Secret Handshake” references the close-ties which President Trump shared with Epstein. The statue is sculpted from wood, foam and resin according to ARTnews. “We like the idea that September is unofficially called Friendship Month,” A representative of the anonymous artists group under the pseudonym Patrick said to ARTnews. “We felt that Trump had quite a few friends throughout his life. One of his friends was Jeffrey Epstein, so we wanted to celebrate that with a statue of what that friendship might feel like.”

A plaque on the statue read, “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.” This is a message Trump had allegedly sent to Epstein on his birthday, which he drew on a nude female torso, although Trump has denied so. The New York Times, which first reported the message, has also noted Trump’s signature at the end of the message being very similar to his signature. Trump sued the Times over the piece, although the suit was dismissed soon. “These two people had an affinity for each other, and they also seemingly had an affinity for abusing women in different their ways.” The artists’ representative added. “Maybe that was their bond, maybe it wasn’t. But they have been pretty reliably accused of similar things.” It is unsurprising that Trump would be uneasy with this kind of art, given that he has criticised the Smithsonian for “focusing too much on how bad slavery was.”

However, according to WUSA9, a video posted on the subreddit of Washington DC by the user Are-you-a-vegetable showed that the statue was removed on 5:30 AM Wednesday morning by the US Park Police, despite the artists having secured the permit to have it placed until Sunday. The police stated that the statue wasn’t in compliance with the permit (though they didn’t elaborate on how), and the permit does include a clause wherein the police can remove a statue, only if the people who placed the statue are notified 24 hours in advance. Jeffrey Epstein died in prison awaiting trial in 2019, which was ruled as a suicide but has since been subject to a lot of speculation and conspiracy.

This particular artists group have placed similar statues before. On June 18th, 2025, an eight-foot tall statue named “Dictator Approved” appeared at The National Mall, depicting a gold hand crushing the head of the statue of liberty. Similarly, another sculpture with a gold-painted television set appeared by the same artists group in June. The gold television set had a gold eagle on top of it, and the television played a 15 second clip of Trump’s dance moves which have achieved infamy as he was at that party with Epstein. A gold plaque on the television set read, “In the United States of America you have the freedom to display your so-called ‘art,’ no matter how ugly it is.” cryptocurrency enthusiasts, unrelated to the aforementioned artists group had also placed a statue of the President with cryptocurrency. In the UK, 4 people were arrested for projecting a video of Trump and Epstein at a party on the wall of Windsor Castle.