A giant satirical statue of a participation trophy appeared on Monday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., mocking the Trump administration’s continued stalemate in the Iran war.
“We hereby award President Donald J. Trump this participation trophy for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran War,” a plaque on the statue reads. “While some concern themselves with military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes, President Trump demonstrated the courage to participate regardless of the final score.”
“As the recipient of this prestigious award, President Trump joins the ranks of children everywhere who received recognition for simply showing up,” the plaque continues.
The work, which encourages members of the public to leave their own trophies nearby, comes from Secret Handshake, an anonymous group of artists who have been installing prank statues in Washington throughout the administration.
Smaller trophies were seen scattered around the monument on Monday.
The Independent has contacted Secret Handshake and the Department of Interior for comment.
“These untalented ‘artists’ should stick to their ugly ‘art’ and refrain from weighing in on foreign policy – which they clearly know nothing about, given the fact that the United States Military achieved all of its objectives during Operation Epic Fury,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told The Independent in a statement.
The art collective’s previous stunts have included a gold toilet throne mocking the White House ballroom project, an arcade-style video game cabinet spoofing the administration’s jingoistic messaging around the Iran war, and, most famously, a statue on the Mall last fall depicting Trump and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein holding hands.
The trophy statue plays on President Trump’s well-known love of awards.
The president spent considerable time in his first year back in office openly pining for a Nobel Peace Prize. In a message to Norway’s prime minister that leaked this January, Trump linked not getting the prize to his administration’s push to seize Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” the letter reads.
The month prior, international soccer governing body FIFA awarded Trump a newly created FIFA Peace Prize, just weeks after Venezuelan democracy campaigner Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel. The soccer prize was seen as part of FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s months-long campaign to charm the president.
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed to have defeated Iran militarily, even though a tentative peace deal collapsed this month and the U.S. and Iran continue to trade strikes.
The president said Monday he will reimpose a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and begin charging a 20 percent fee on cargo passing through the vital Strait of Hormuz, a move which could again rattle the global economy after the key oil shipping lane was effectively shut during the first phase of the war.
On Friday, the administration formally notified Congress that fighting has resumed.
