President Donald Trump's National Garden of American Heroes executive order came as a pleasant surprise to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.
Scalia is the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was included on Trump's list for those to be honored with monuments.
"It would mean a lot," Scalia told substitute anchor Mike Emanuel on "Fox News Sunday." "I didn't see that one coming, Mike, and it was really touching to hear. I hope it would mean a lot to the American people, too."
"I certainly was touched to hear my father was on that list."
A portion of Trump's order read:
"The National Garden should be composed of statues, including statues of John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, George S. Patton, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Antonin Scalia, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and Orville and Wilbur Wright."
Late Justice Antonin Scalia is the only Supreme Court justice on the list.
"We need heroes," Scalia said Sunday. "We need to admire our forebears and recognize what is great and good in our past. And that is what the president is emphasizing right now."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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