Trump’s list of statues for ‘National Garden of American Heroes’ includes Jeopardy! host and MLK

Trump first announced the idea for a National Garden of American Heroes in a speech he made at Mount Rushmore last July

Credit: Alex Brandon /AP

Donald Trump has named a host of famous and historical figures he plans to memorialise in a "National Garden of American Heroes", including black civil rights leaders, an arcade gamer, and the late host of TV game show Jeopardy!

In one of his final acts as president, Mr Trump, who leaves office on Wednesday at noon, issued an executive order calling for statues to be made of a long and varied list of 244 people, including Abraham Lincoln, Kobe Bryant, Whitney Houston, and Walt Disney.

Jeopardy! host George Alexander Trebek, who died in November, was considered one of the odder choices, particularly considering he was Canadian-born — though later became a naturalised American citizen.

Some were surprised to see the inclusion of individuals such as Martin Luther King Jnr, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late liberal Supreme Court Justice who was replaced by Mr Trump’s more conservative pick, and Hannah Arendt, the German-Jewish political theorist who wrote about the rise of fascism and totalitarianism.

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek in 2019

Credit: Richard Shotwell /Invision

The list also included Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, but also frontiersman Davy Crockett, evangelical Christian preacher Billy Graham, and former president Ronald Reagan. William “Billy” Mitchell, an arcade game player who was the first to reach a perfect score on Pac-Man, was also named.

Mr Trump first announced the idea for a National Garden of American Heroes in a speech he made at Mount Rushmore last July, where he condemned Black Lives Matter protesters across the country for attacking monuments of Confederalists in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.

"Our Nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children," the president told a crowd before the national monument in South Dakota. He said at the time that America’s national heritage was being threatened.

People left mementos in a makeshift memorial for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in front of the US Supreme Court

Credit: Samuel Corum /Getty

The president said the garden would be a "vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived.”

A task force under the Department of the Interior will determine the site of the park, according to the order. It is expected to be open to the public in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.

James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, said the choices vary from “odd to probably inappropriate to provocative."