Joe Flood
October 4, 2025
In this wretched dystopia, the one thing that we can be thankful for is that enemies of freedom are clumsy, dumb and incompetent.
A group of artists, the Secret Handshake, placed a statue of Trump and Epstein on the National Mall celebrating their friendship. Called “Best Friends Forever,” it depicted the two men holding hands in honor of Friendship Month. Gold, garish and hollow, it was a perfect representation of the shameless corruption of the regime.
The friendship statue fit into the grand tradition of satiric art. We’re a country where you can make fun of our leaders – or we used to be.
The National Parks Service (NPS) issued a permit for it. But then once it popped up in the news, they revoked the permit and hauled the statue away in a pre-dawn raid.
Famously unresponsive, they gave no reason for the removal but then said it was too big before finally telling the artists that they were never getting another permit again.
As they tossed the statue into the back of a truck, NPS broke it, too, smashing into pieces, like the vandals that they are. This is the agency that is charged with protecting our heritage.
Trashing the Trump-Epstein Friendship Statue wasn’t their only act of creative destruction. They also trashed another permitted event, the FLARE anti-Trump vigil outside Union Station. This was a collection of tents, information stations and a stage. Again, in the dead of night, the regime raided it, destroyed it and tossed the remains into the back of a truck.
The cause was a Charlie Kirk imitator who triggered a woman in a mental health crisis into attacking him. He got the viral video he wanted, as well as donations and White House attention. She wasn’t part of FLARE but the Park Police used this as an excuse to shut them down.
In 2022, I send multiple emails to NPS about the 1776 Restoration Movement, a right-wing group that camped out on the Mall for an entire month with kids sleeping in vehicles, open gas cans and a poop bucket as they called for the violent overthrow of the government. NPS never even responded to me.
When the Trump-Epstein Friendship Statue was removed, I emailed NPS to know why. They are public servants and part of their job is responding to the public. Of course, I heard nothing back from them.
The good news is that artists are creative and art has a way of routing around censorship. The friendship statue was memorialized on Wikipedia. And the plans for it were placed online, so anyone could 3D print their own copy of the statue.
And with notice and no explanation from NPS, the Trump-Epstein statue “Best Friends Forever” returned to the National Mall.
It’s a little beat up. You can see where NPS broke it in pieces and damaged the inscriptions.
But it’s become Washington’s hottest new tourist destination. And with the government shut down, and the museums closing soon, it may be Washington’s only tourist destination.
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